Текст книги "Rock Addiction"
Автор книги: Nalini Singh
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Chapter 5
Work kept Molly busy, the library buzzing with a mix of adults and children as well as keen university students after some of the older material held in the archives. And if parts of her body twinged and throbbed in unfamiliar ways, they’d settle soon enough, erasing any lingering physical trace of Fox’s possession and leaving behind only memories—memories she had no intention of smothering.
Her dream of a stable, happily boring life hadn’t changed, would never change. It made her stomach lurch to even think about the horror that had been the unforgiving glare of “fame” after her high-profile father was found with that underage girl, the constant whispers and stares.
No, she didn’t want excitement. What she wanted was blissful normality: a job she liked; a steady, faithful man; a house on an ordinary suburban street; a sedate minivan with room in back for the slobbering family dog. But… when she was living that safe, stable life, the memory of her night with a smart, sexy, roughly tender rock star would be a hidden treasure, a quiet acknowledgment of the other Molly. The Molly who might’ve lived a life more adventurous and less ordinary in another time, another place… a Molly who, in this world, was a little too broken to ever again be permitted to hold the reins.
Fox hadn’t become the lead singer of one of the best-selling rock bands in history by being a shrinking violet. No, he went after what he wanted, no holds barred. And the raw promise he could feel between him and Molly? He had to know where it would lead, the need so strong he hadn’t felt anything like it since the day he’d figured out that music was his escape, the air in his lungs.
Which was why he was leaning against the wall beside Molly’s apartment at five that afternoon, a guitar by his side.
The elevator doors opened at a quarter after the hour, Molly going motionless two steps outside of it, the doors closing silently at her back. Yeah, she hadn’t expected him, but Fox was ready to work with that. Waiting patiently as she took a deep breath and completed the trek down the corridor, he drew in the scent of her, his gaze lingering on the fluttering pulse in her neck.
“How did you get past security?”
Fox smiled slowly at the blurted-out question, wondering if Molly knew how bad she was at hiding her emotions. He liked it, liked that he saw the real Molly, not an illusion she’d created to tempt him—not that she had to do anything but smile to tempt him. “I told you the security sucks.”
Unable to resist, he reached out to run his finger down one creamy cheek flushed with a mix of surprise, passion, and, he was certain, sweet, hot feminine anger. His guess was borne out when Molly unlocked her door with jittery hands and put down her handbag on one corner of the bench, her fingers trembling before she curled them into her palms. “You’re breaking the rules.”
“What rules?” Closing the door, he leaned back on it and willed her to face him. Much as he loved the shape of her from the back, he liked watching those expressive eyes whisper her mood to him.
Shoulders tight, she turned. “This was supposed to be a one-night stand.”
“Ah.” Folding his arms over the plain black of his T-shirt, he said, “How about a one-month stand instead?” He knew he had to play this exactly right. Molly was wary of him, and yeah, he could understand why. To have her in his life beyond a fleeting instant, he’d have to win her trust.
She jerked up her head. “What?”
“Why not? I like you. You like me.” He smiled—because the reason Molly had needed to jerk up her head was that she’d been staring at his chest. “Admit it.”
Sitting down on the bench, she began to unzip her boots, very obviously not looking at him. “You’re okay for a rock star.”
He wanted to bite her, then pet her until she was limp and languid in his arms. “We burn up together.” Deliberately modulating his voice—his instrument—for maximum effect, low and bedroom rough, he saw her fingers stutter on the zipper. “I’m here for a month. It’s an easy equation.”
When the words “Let me think about it” fell from her mouth, he thought she might’ve been as startled as he was, her lips parting on a slight gasp—as if to call back the declaration.
Crouching down, he began to tug off her boots, distracting her from her thoughts. He had no intention of playing fair. There were very few things he’d ever truly hungered for in life, and he’d never been given any of them. He’d claimed each through sheer, unrelenting will and the grim refusal to surrender.
Now… now there was Molly. “Are you kicking me out?”
“Don’t you want a different woman each night?”
He heard the tremor she tried to hide, and knew she’d said words similar to those that had lit a spark under his temper the previous night on purpose. Molly Webster was trying to scare him off because she was finding it difficult to say no.
Gut tight and blood hot, he got rid of her remaining boot. “You really have a high opinion of me.” Expecting warm, supple skin under his hands when he slid them up below the hem of her skirt—because he was more than happy to use her physical response to him to tie them together—he found an unexpected barrier instead. “You said no stockings.” The material under his touch was silky and soft and smooth.
“They’re tights.”
Body hardening even further at her breathy response, he traced the fine fabric another fraction past the hemline of her skirt, kept going. “Thigh-high tights.” Suddenly, they were the sexiest things he could imagine. “I want to see.” See the rich cream of her skin against the frame created by the deep gray and blue pattern, kiss every satiny inch.
She put her hands on his, halting him when he would’ve pushed her skirt up to her thighs. “I haven’t said yes yet.”
“Yes, you have, Molly.” Fox held her gaze, sweeping his thumbs slowly across the delicate skin above her tights. “I can feel it in the pulse under your skin, hear it in your voice, scent the damp heat of you on my tongue.”
Maybe, maybe he’d have found the strength to walk away from the intoxicating intensity of the pull between them if Molly had been indifferent to him—though far more likely, he’d have done everything in his power to change that, because he wasn’t the walking-away type, not when it came to the things that mattered. But Molly wasn’t indifferent.
Skin coloring on the heels of his words, she tried to squeeze her thighs together. He blocked her by wedging his body between them. “Don’t be embarrassed, baby.” Shifting position slightly, he caught her lips in a teasing, coaxing kind of a kiss. “You have no idea how unbelievably hot I find it that I make you so wet.”
When her hand came to rest on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing his nape, he had to exert steely control not to deepen the kiss, not to pull down her panties and take her then and there. That would leave him in the same position he’d been in before she let him in tonight, Molly skittish and unsure.
He had to be smart about this, coax her as he’d coax a difficult chord from the guitar. With sweet patience and hard-eyed determination. “You make the rules.” Pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, he stroked his thumbs over her skin again. “Tell me what you want.”
Molly swallowed. Fox was right; she wanted him as much now as she had during the hours they’d spent tangled in the dark. But a single night she could justify. Anything longer threatened to take this beyond a moment of wildness and into far more perilous territory.
“One month,” she whispered near soundlessly. “After that, you leave and never contact me again.” It was a stipulation born of the pain inside her, a pain so old it had its own heartbeat, a dark heaviness that was a terrible ache.
“That’s clear enough.” A kiss on her jaw, the movement of his thumbs on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs radiating pleasure that pooled in the throbbing bundle of nerve endings between her legs.
“And,” she rasped, “we’re exclusive for that month.”
His hands tightened on her flesh. “No one else, I promise.” Another teasing, tormenting brush of his thumbs, the callused pads scraping erotically over her flesh. “Come here, baby.” The seductive invitation in that whiskey-and-sin voice stole her will, threatened to destroy everything she’d worked for in life.
Dangerous, he was so dangerous. Still, she dipped her head that final inch and kissed him. Her control of the contact lasted approximately two seconds. Gripping her nape with one hand to hold her in position, Fox kissed her, not raw and deep as she’d expected, but with a slow attention that had her entire body aflame, the ring on his lip a hard accent. He slid his other hand higher up her leg at the same time, making her stomach flutter, her inner muscles clench.
“Such pretty, soft skin.” It was spoken against her mouth, his lips curving in a smile as he licked playfully across her own. When she shivered, his eyes darkened, his kiss deeper but just as slow, as if this rock god had all the time in the world to kiss and caress Molly Webster. His hand gently squeezed her nape.
Warning bells clanged in her mind. It felt as if she were drowning, kiss by slow kiss, Fox coaxing her into deeper and deeper waters. “The bedroom—” she began on a slightly panicked breath.
Eyes lazy, hooded, he kissed away her words before glancing down at her legs. Her heartbeat was in her mouth as she watched him push up her skirt to expose the pale skin of her upper thighs.
“You make my mouth water.” Lowering his head, he pressed a single wet kiss on the inner curve of her right thigh, his stubbled jaw rubbing against her flesh.
She clutched at his hair, the strands dark silk against her palms. “Fox, we—”
Shifting his grip to under her thighs, he pulled her forward on the bench, her hands falling to the leather seat cushion to brace herself as he altered her center of gravity. “Hmm,” he murmured, the green of his gaze holding her own for a second that stole all the air in her lungs. “What’s the rush, Molly Webster?” He bit down over the tendon in her neck.
Hands back in his hair, her fingers spasmed into a tighter hold, her breath a tremor.
“Bad Fox.” Licking out, he soothed the sensual hurt with his tongue. “There, I’m behaving now.”
She shuddered, surrendered under the gritty seduction of his voice, sought his mouth with hers. It was clear she wasn’t the one setting the pace tonight, but she no longer cared. Not with Fox’s strong body between her legs and his hands on her own, his kisses drugging her to a languorous pleasure that made her want to explore him as slowly as he was exploring her.
Groaning, Fox shifted one hand into her hair, unraveling the twist, but didn’t take over this time. No, he let her kiss him, let her play with the lip ring that fascinated her. Molly felt oddly shy as she went to—
Her home phone rang.
She ignored it, her lower body melting at the way Fox continued to stroke his thumb over her skin as they kissed. No rush, no hurry, nothing but pleasure, her bones heavy with it.
The phone kept ringing.
And ringing.
Finally, the answering machine kicked in. Molly was a mass of helpless flesh by that point, couldn’t have cared less who it was. But the worried female voice, familiar and beloved, intruded more effectively than a scream. Sudden panic slicing through the sensual haze, she pushed at the wide shoulders in front of her. “I have to get this.”
Fox released her without argument after taking one look at her face, and she ran to grab the handset on the counter that separated her living area from the kitchenette. “Charlie, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, you’re home.” Her friend’s voice, a low whisper, broke on the last word. “I just…” A deep inhale. “There’s someone else in the office, and there shouldn’t be. I came back from the bathroom and heard them moving around.”
“Leave,” Molly said, her fingers rigid on the handset.
“No.” Charlotte took another shaky breath. “It’s probably only the building security guard doing an unscheduled round, but could you stay on the phone with me while I go check it out?”
Molly bit back her instinctive negative reaction to her friend’s plan, knowing how important it was to Charlotte that she not crumble under the weight of what might be an imagined fear. “I’m right here.”
Having circled to the other side of the counter, Fox, his expression grim, caught her eye and mouthed, Problem?
Maybe, she mouthed back, hoping she was wrong. That was when a scream sounded from the other end of the line, followed by a thud, as if the phone had hit the carpet. “Charlotte! Charlie!”
Scrabbling, rustling sounds, then Charlotte’s voice, a little breathless and holding a taut tension. Not fear though; this was excruciating embarrassment. “I’m fine.” A pause, a deeper voice murmuring in the background before Charlotte returned. “I just met my new boss,” her best friend groaned into the phone. “Or more specifically, I threw an industrial-strength stapler at his head.”
Knees trembling in relief, Molly braced her elbows on the counter as Fox reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. Catching the intent lines of his expression, she touched his wrist, let him see everything was all right. He didn’t know Charlotte, but he’d heard that scream, too.
Maybe she’d imagined the protective concern in his expression… No, she didn’t think so. Every instinct she had said this man would never stand by while a woman was hurt. Neither would he ever hurt one. Not physically. Now he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip before dropping his hand and moving to pick up a delivery menu she had on the counter from a neighborhood restaurant.
“Oh God, Molly, what if he fires me?”
Molly wrenched her attention back to her best friend. “He’s not going to fire you,” she reassured Charlotte as Fox turned the menu toward her. “You were in the office being a diligent employee, remember?” Not sure how she felt about the fact she was about to have dinner with the rock star who’d been meant to be a one-night stand, Molly nonetheless pointed at her favorite dish and Fox pulled out his phone to place the order.
“Right, that’s right. I—” Charlotte broke off as the deep male voice returned in the background. When her friend came back on the line, she sounded half-strangled. “He just said we’re going out to dinner so I can bring him up to speed on ‘certain issues.’”
Molly decided she liked the new boss. “Go.” Make Anya look bad, she added silently. It infuriated her that Anya—all gloss and impeccable style—dumped her work on Charlotte, then took the credit, with Charlotte too shy and reserved to push herself forward. “Order the most expensive thing on the menu.”
“I’ll probably throw it up,” Charlotte said morosely. “I better go—he said five minutes.”
“Good luck.” Hanging up, she stared at the gorgeous man who’d made her bones turn to honey with his kiss and felt the butterflies in her stomach take flight again.
Terror, anticipation, near-painful desire… Molly wasn’t sure what she was feeling, what she was doing, but when Fox turned to look at her with a half-smile on those bitable lips, she knew she wasn’t going to renege on their agreement.
One month. A single, passionate month out of a lifetime. Surely fate wouldn’t begrudge her that?
Chapter 6
Fox saw secrets in Molly’s eyes. His instinct was to demand she share them, demand she let him in, but he knew damn well that would never work. For this battle, he’d need patience when patience was the one trait he’d never been accused of possessing. Putting away his phone, he walked over to take her hand, tug her to the door he’d found while he’d been placing the order.
A single push and it slid open to showcase a minuscule balcony—but one with a clear view of the city skyline. The fall air was crisp, the temperature having dropped since he’d entered the building. It cooled his skin, did nothing to chill the heat in his blood. Allowing Molly to go first, he waited till she turned to face him, then pinned her against the railing with his hands on either side of her body. “Food’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Good.” Her voice was a touch husky, her eyes not quite meeting his.
Fox fought the urge to haul her to the bedroom, strip her to the skin, take her deep and long until all distance was erased. Sex was easy. He didn’t want easy. He wanted Molly.
Deliberately pressing so close she had to tip up her head to look at him, he said, “Was that your friend from the party? The tiny blonde with glasses?”
Her eyes widened. “You noticed us?”
“I noticed every damn thing about you.” Giving in to temptation, he kissed the line of her throat, her jaw, suckled on her lower lip.
Molly’s heartbeat had accelerated under his caresses, her pulse thudding beneath her skin. Yeah, sex might be easy, but he had no problem using it to tie Molly to him while he worked on what he really wanted. “How long have you been friends?”
Her chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, Molly’s eyes lingered on his mouth and on the lip ring he’d figured out she loved. He felt his mouth curve. “Molly,” he said, pitching his voice low and deep, his entire body primed for her until it was only his grip on the cold metal of the railing that kept him from petting and stroking and seducing her right on this balcony.
The color on her cheekbones darkened, her lashes coming down to shade her eyes. “Since nursery school,” she said after almost half a minute. “We should go inside. It’s cold.”
Wrapping her up in his arms, he spoke against the shell of her ear. “Is this better?”
Molly didn’t answer, but her arms came around him a few seconds later.
It felt… right.
Rubbing his cheek against her temple, he suddenly remembered his stubbled jaw. “Sorry. I don’t want to mark up your skin.” Not quite the truth. He liked seeing her creamy flesh reddened by his kisses, his touch, intended to rub his jaw along the sensitive inner skin of her thighs in bed tonight before he tasted her.
“I don’t mind.” A quiet murmur, her breasts pressed against his chest, her hip dangerous temptation under his hand. “Do you want to—I mean, should we—” Her fingers clenched in his T-shirt. “I suck at this.”
Enjoying his soft armful of woman, Fox stroked her from the top of her spine to the sweet curves below. “I think you’re perfect.” Natural and unaffected and with an open desire that made him her slave, if she only knew it.
“So, should we…”
Fox knew she was attempting to wrench this night back under control, push them into the bedroom where it was safe. He could even guess at the reasons why she didn’t want to become any further involved with him. Hell, he wouldn’t date himself. Not with the reputation he’d earned as a young musician, a rep that had never quite worn off—and that didn’t take the relentless media attention into account. No sane, intelligent woman would want to be caught up in his world, her every action scrutinized, her life put under a microscope.
Fox had nearly punched out a reporter last month, and he’d been living this reality for years. So yeah, he understood. He just didn’t plan on allowing any of that to get in the way of his pursuit of Molly and the nameless but increasingly powerful thing between them—because he’d protect her. She wouldn’t be thrown to the wolves, would be safe with him and the band.
“Takeout,” he reminded her instead of speaking his thoughts aloud. The instant he did, Molly would realize he’d never actually agreed to her one-month time limit and pull away. He couldn’t allow that; he needed the time to coax, cajole, and pleasure her into trusting him. Enough to give them a real shot.
An hour and a half later, Molly found herself uncertain of what to do. She’d never had a passionate affair before, felt gauche and lost.
Closing the distance between them, Fox took her hand, led her into the bedroom. “Such big brown eyes.” He cupped her face between those rough-skinned hands that felt so exquisite against her skin. “What’re you thinking?”
That voice. Hard rock and pure sin, it made her breath catch, her stomach somersault. “That I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, since he already knew the exact breadth of her experience.
Fox rubbed his thumb over the plump flesh of her lower lip. “We do what feels good” was his simple answer. “First”—his eyes intent on her face—“you tell me if I need to wait till tomorrow.”
It took her a second. Then, fingers curling on his T-shirt, she shook her head. “No, I think it’ll be okay.” Her muscles ached, but there was no pain.
“You just say stop if it isn’t.” His mouth was on hers as soon as she nodded, his kiss intoxicating.
By the time their lips parted, her hands were under his T-shirt and on the hot skin of his back, her nipples rasping against the fabric of her bra. She was acutely aware of his hands on her backside, the hold blatantly sexual. When he shifted to undo the button and zip on her skirt, she allowed the black piece of clothing to drop to the carpet, the style loose enough that it didn’t catch on her hips.
Nudging away her hands, he tugged her sweater over her head himself. “Beautiful.”
Molly knew she wasn’t beautiful, not like the starlets and models who lived in his world, but he made her feel that way, his voice gritty with appreciation. Clasping his hand over her nape again, he drew her in for a kiss as wet and as demanding as the need between her thighs. “Take off your bra for me, baby.”
Shivering at the sound of that voice meant for sex and sin, she pulled the straps down her arms, then undid the hooks to drop the black lace bra on top of her skirt. It left her dressed only in matching panties and the thigh-high tights Fox looked at with a smile of pure male approval. It set her skin afire with nerves.
His hands on her. No warning, no hesitation, his palms covering the bare mounds of her breasts. Shocked into a moan, she arched into him, shuddering at the feel of his rock-hard body against the softness of her own. When he released her needy flesh after a single squeeze, she wanted to whimper, beg for more.
Tracing the top edge of one leg of the tights, his other hand flat on her lower back, he said, “Funny how these make me have the dirtiest fantasies.” He nipped at her kiss-swollen lower lip, his statement making her want to squirm. “In the bed.”
She had no motivation to disobey that order. Slipping under the sheets, she watched him strip with clean efficiency. The T-shirt went over his head to reveal a chest that had her hands fisting on the bedspread, shoes and socks were nudged off, jeans ripped off… underwear, too.
Her body twinged, reminding her she’d had that muscled male body on her, in her. And was about to again. Sucking in desperate gulps of air, she swallowed as he got into bed and leaned on his elbow beside her, his erection pressing against her thigh.
“There go those thoughts again,” he said, tugging the sheet down to expose her breasts. “I should’ve had you naked an hour ago, shouldn’t I?” He rolled one nipple lazily between thumb and forefinger.
Biting back a whimper, Molly nodded. “Yes.” Any time to think and she began to wonder what in the world she was doing. “I never thought I’d be here, like this.” Naked in bed with a rock god.
“I’m damn glad you are.” A smile so smoldering it devastated her senses, then his cock thrusting against her abdomen as he came over her after shoving the sheet totally aside. “It’s just you and me in this bed.” He braced himself on one muscled arm, tattoos bright in her peripheral vision. “Outside world doesn’t exist. So give in and enjoy.”
“Give in and enjoy.”
There were so many things wrong with that statement when it came to the life Molly wanted to live. “I’m not sure I can do that. I’m not a rock chick. I’m a librarian.”
“Stereotypes, Miss Molly?” The eye contact searing, he slipped his fingers under the waistband of her panties. “Tut, tut.”
Her hand clenched on his arm, muscle and tendon moving under the golden silk of his skin as he slid those long, strong fingers through her slick folds, the callused tips lusciously abrasive. Unable to hold the dark intimacy of his gaze as he cupped her with sexual possessiveness, she shifted her attention to his mouth—but her view disappeared the next second, chocolate-dark strands of hair in her vision.
Heart rabbiting against her ribs and body primed for the hot, wet suction of his mouth on her nipple, she waited. She should’ve known Fox would never be predictable. He ran his tongue leisurely up one breast, then the other—as if she were his favorite flavor of ice cream and he intended to take his time and enjoy her lick by lick. Her skin was sheened with perspiration, her hand fisted in his hair by the time he closed his teeth over part of one breast, biting down just enough that it was pleasure, not pain. “Fox.”
Raising his head at the breathy sound, he released her breast to take her mouth, his tongue stroking aggressively past her lips in a kiss that smashed right through her boundaries and insisted she respond.
Out of my depth, I am so out of my depth.
It didn’t matter, not here, not now, with his body on hers, his mouth demanding. Stroking her tongue against his own, she tried to hold him to the kiss, but he broke it to say, “We haven’t finished our conversation,” his tone making it clear that was about to change.
“Anyone ever tell you,” Molly managed to say, “that you like to have control?” It took extreme effort to get the words out, her brain completely scrambled with what he did to her.
“Why do you think I’m the lead singer?” A smile with just enough arrogance to be irresistible.
Molly was unable to take her eyes from the masculine curve of his mouth, the piercing having its usual wicked effect on her senses.
“I like to be the boss.”
She’d already figured that out and part of her, the part that had been forced to become an adult at fifteen, the part that had driven her to carve out a better life for herself through merciless determination and absolute discipline, said she should protest.
Except, the thing was… she was tired.
Tired of being always responsible, of never permitting herself to let go in case she went too far and ended up right back in the hell that had killed her parents and splintered her life. Being with Fox couldn’t fix her past, couldn’t eradicate the fear and need inside her… but maybe she could surrender the reins for a fragment of time and not feel guilty about it. After all, this gift-wrapped box would vanish in a month.
Perhaps that was why she said it, why she confessed one of her deepest fears. Because he was safe, would forget her and her secrets as soon as the month was over. “I worry.”
Fox brushed strands of hair off her face. “About what, baby?”
Heart aching at the tenderness she hadn’t foreseen, she said, “Of who I’ll become if I give in.”
Fox didn’t break eye contact at the uninvited emotional intimacy, though theirs was meant to be a strictly physical relationship. She was the one who lowered her lashes. “Addiction runs in my family.” Gambling, alcohol, women, love. It was the last, most dangerous addiction of all that had destroyed her mother.
Tipping up her chin, Fox sucked her upper lip into his mouth, then shifted his attention to the lower one. Breasts deliciously crushed against the taut wall of his chest, she shivered and curled her fingers around his neck, unable to get enough of his kisses.
“Do you think you’ll become addicted to mind-blowing sex?” A teasing question except there was no humor in the eyes that locked with hers.
This was getting too serious, too fast, but she was the one who’d opened the gate. “If I give in to this,” she whispered, “what other boundaries will I break? What other addictions will I develop?” That was the fear that haunted her always, shaping each and every one of her decisions.
“Have faith in yourself.” He pressed his lips to the shockingly sensitive spot below her ear, her shiver reflexive. “I do.”
Molly knew Fox was sweet-talking her to get her to do what he wanted in bed, his sexual experience apparent in the way he played her body like he played the crowds while onstage. None of that altered her unexpected, dangerous desire for him. “You were meant to be a one-night stand.” The biggest risk she’d ever taken. “Look where I am now. It’s a slippery slope.”
Fox’s answer was a kiss that took over her mouth, enslaved her senses. Her body attempted to rise toward his in a luxuriant wave, was halted by the weight of him pinning her in place.
When he broke the sumptuous intimacy of the kiss to look into her eyes once more, she was lost in the deep green. “Have faith, Molly,” he said again, and she crashed.
Drowned.
