‘Go up.’ They could drink in the room. Unlike him, she felt too exposed here to be comfortable. To even fit in, she’d have to buy a cocktail dress and some four-inch stilettos. Her current heels weren’t nearly high enough, and she was far too conscious of the fact that she was still wearing Xane’s clothes. That dress Ginny had insisted she pack was definitely getting an airing the minute they got to the room.
Upstairs the surprises kept on coming. She supposed the first clue ought to have been the grinning lion-like moulding on the door. The room – make that suite – that Xane led her into rivalled her entire apartment in floor space, and was about a billion times as grand. IKEA didn’t have a look-in. The only furniture here was handmade from solid wood and polished enough to use as a mirror. While she gazed round at the vast sofa, the lamps and tables, Xane strolled onto the balcony.
The evening sun lay low on the horizon. The light barely penetrated the voile drapes, though it still cast Xane’s shadow on the floor. Outside, the harbour stretched before them, and a hundred white yachts sat tethered in orderly lines.
The scent of the sea mingled with the perfume of the flowers. Dani breathed deeply. ‘It’s – wow!’ she said, wrapping her arms around his waist so she could squeeze him tight and press her cheek to the warmth of his back. She loved how he felt and the frisson of energy that leapt between them whenever they touched. Hugging Xane was like trying to snuggle up to a few thousand volts: dangerous, but so worth the pain. ‘I’m not sure why you chose me, but …’
‘You’re interested in me.’ He turned and looked down at her, his eyes narrowed to dark slits. ‘Actual me. You’ve no idea how rare that is.’ His lips brushed against her brow. Then he sought her mouth. ‘Also, I wasn’t making that stuff up on the flight. I do actually intend to do all those things.’
‘OK,’ she agreed, an awkward smile turning up the corners of her mouth. She still found it hard to believe he was attracted to her. It seemed a little too much of a dream come true. Xane had been a sort of guardian angel to her for eternity, the person she turned to, the one who gave her comfort. The lyrics he sang described her personal hell so succinctly. His pain matched her pain. He understood.
She’d never thought of it as a two-way thing. It was probably unwise to even think in those terms. If she allowed herself to be drawn too close, Xane might burn her so badly she’d never recover. Then she’d risk turning into her mother, cloistered away from the world because a man had rejected her.
At least Dani was approaching this under no illusions. Her poor mum hadn’t an inkling of what was occurring until it had slapped her in the face. All Dani had to do was accept that this thing with Xane wasn’t serious. He was on loan, not for keeps. This wasn’t a fairy tale. They weren’t headed for a happily ever after, only sharing a dirty weekend. If she did that then she’d be fine. She’d make the most of it, then she’d go home afterwards and not talk about it, except to Ginny, and her mum would never be any the wiser.
‘Feeling better now we’re on terra firma?’ His dark hair stirred in the breeze before settling around his face. ‘I won’t make you endure the helicopter ride again. We’ll drive to the airport when we leave.’
Hello, reality. They were barely in the suite and his mind was already on departure.
‘Hey?’ He must have seen her face fall, for he ensnared her in his arms and kissed her. ‘No frowning. There are no woes freeloading on this trip. We’re here to have fun, right?’ He flashed a wicked glance towards the as yet unexplored bedroom, confirming his priorities – get naked, get sexy and satisfy the itch that had his body pulled tight as a bowstring.
She couldn’t help it. Dani’s gaze crept down his front and checked out his crotch. Yup – he was eager all right.
‘Ground rules,’ she blurted. They ought to establish some. Not that she wanted to talk when he was busy closing in to worship her mouth.
‘You know, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of blood left in my brains. It makes thinking a bit hard.’
‘Really?’ she replied, accepting the soft press of his lips. ‘I can’t imagine where it’s all gone.’
‘Can’t you?’ He took hold of her hand. ‘I reckon it’s mostly down here.’ He turned her palm so it lay wedged between their bodies, covering the hummock tenting his fly. Dani squeezed the shaft and rolled the heel of her hand over the flared head, making him stiffen even more.
Xane’s breath caught. His tongue flicked against the ring through his lip, turning it.
‘Dani …’ he rasped. ‘I want you. I want you right now. No more waiting, no more interfering do-gooders, just you, me and a little overcoat.’
So much for ground rules! Not that she was capable of actual speech herself. Right now, the only sounds escaping her throat were groans of excitement.
Thirty seconds in his arms and it was already too hot to be wearing clothes.
Xane’s hands sliding under her top pulled her back to reality. She wasn’t prepared for this. There hadn’t been time.
‘Xane.’ She said his name, hoping to slow him down a bit. Instead, he looked ready to devour her.
Worse still, she wanted him to do exactly that. Until now, she hadn’t comprehended exactly how on edge she’d been since they’d parted ways that morning. Her nerves sang with energy. If Ash hadn’t intruded on them, if they’d had a few more moments together earlier in which to sate their lust, then perhaps she’d have been the good girl everyone expected her to be and would have backed away, slowed him down. Maybe suggested they take an evening stroll, instead of performing this hip-to-hip dance.
But she wanted him – every bit of him, against every bit of her. She wasn’t even going to pretend to be a good girl any more. Good girls didn’t run away. They didn’t lie about what they did, and they definitely didn’t think dirty thoughts about where they’d like to stick their fingers, or their tongues, in the hope of turning their dates into putty.
Although if Xane kept on moving the way he did, the only drooling wreck around here would be her.
Oh, God! How was she supposed to survive this? One kiss and she’d lost any semblance of cool she’d ever possessed.
Xane’s hands on her flesh made her buzz like she’d mainlined a vat of syrup. He traced the underwired ridge of her bra, while his kisses moved to her neck to seek out the sweet spots she knew he favoured. Very soon, though, he’d be wetting one of the nipples he’d already coaxed into a point, sucking it into his hungry mouth. The tickle of his tongue piercing against that tender flesh would no doubt feel every bit as good as it did against her clit.
First, however, he kissed her hair, her eyelashes, even the tip of her nose, while his hands remained in charge of the exploration. It wasn’t her bra he unfastened first, but the top button of her fly.
‘I want to taste you,’ he murmured against her ear, while he peeled open her leathers. He pushed her against the railing, ready to drop to his knees.
‘Not here. We’re in full view of the street.’ He might not mind it, but she didn’t want to be tomorrow’s front page. She could already picture the headline:
ROCKER GOES ON SEXUAL RAMPAGE AFTER SHOCK
SPLIT, not to mention her mum’s response: ‘Dirty whore’.
Xane only relented when she tugged on his hair. He turned through a hundred and eighty degrees with her in his arms and carried her into the sitting room, slamming the doors to the balcony behind him.
Dani clung to his back, enjoying the flex of his muscles as he walked. She loved everything about his shape and the way he moved in an almost balletic, gliding fashion. She’d wasted hours of her life studying his walk. Now, as his hips swayed against hers, his erection rubbed up against her pussy, making her wet and eager for the feel of him hot between her legs.
Xane stopped shy of the bedroom, opting for the dining table instead. He rested her bottom on its hyper-shiny surface, which would probably scandalise every member of the hotel staff. She could picture the maid tutting as she tried to polish away her butt print tomorrow morning.
‘Lift,’ he demanded. No ‘please’, or ‘could you’, only the command. ‘These need to come off now.’
‘Xane … I …’ What she meant to say was, ‘Give me a moment,’ because while she wanted him, she really needed a minute alone with a make-up brush before any of her clothes came off.
Xane stayed her protest with a kiss. ‘Come on, sweetheart. It’s not like we’re strangers.’ He wiggled the leathers off her hips, and then lifted her to slide them the rest of the way. When she stiffened in response to the exposure, he wedged his hand between her thighs and caught her nub with his middle finger.
Oh, that felt good! Really, really good. There was no helping it, she had to rock against that pressure, just move her hips a little against his clever fingers. Xane grasped her hips and pulled her forward to the very edge of the table. A few more tugs and the leather trousers were gone. Her legs spread wide around him, and she hooked her heels behind his calves, trapping him.
Xane leaned over her. He held the back of her head and conquered her with both his kisses and the rude tickle of his fingertips. ‘I’d take this off you too, except it’s kind of hot seeing you in my lucky T.’
This was his lucky T-shirt. If she’d known, she would never have taken it. She was about to ask its significance when he dropped to his knees.
‘These definitely need to come off.’ He hooked a finger inside the edge of her panties.
‘Wouldn’t you rather I did something for you?’ Dani gasped, startled by how almost naked she’d become. All right, the T-shirt covered her to mid-thigh, which at least diverted her from having a full-on panic, but she still felt exposed.
‘Later. I don’t want to come yet. I’m wound too tight. I just need to dial things down a little.’
She didn’t know in which universe taking off her knickers equated to cooling things down, but she appeared to be in it. Dani released an involuntary gasp as Xane claimed her panties.
‘That’s better.’ He grinned lewdly at her, as he deeply inhaled her scent. ‘Relax. Let me make you feel good.’
Let him? He already had her pulse firing at twice the normal rate, and that was before he put his head right between her thighs and blessed her with one of those legendary kisses.
Wow! He had an amazing knack for catching all the right nerve-endings with exactly the right amount of pressure. Swirl and retreat; the flick of his tongue took her places she’d never been before, while his hands kneaded, in that spot … right there … which she hadn’t realised was so sensitive prior to this moment, but was apparently hard-linked to her clit.
‘Tell me you want me to suck you. Tell me you like my tongue on you.’
Like it? She could barely form a coherent thought when he did that. His tongue stud tickled the underside of her clit, setting off another round of fireworks. Dani gripped the sides of the table and held on tight, praying there’d still be something left of her by the time he’d finished her off.
‘I like it,’ she gasped, forsaking her grip on the wood to lace her fingers through his shiny black hair.
‘Yeah?’ Xane stroked right along the length of her slit. ‘Know what I’d like?’
She shook her head.
‘If you came on my tongue.’
Oh, God! She was going to. If he continued what he was doing, then he would get his wish in pretty short order. With every pass her body leapt a fraction closer to that goal.
He slid two blunt-tipped fingers into her sex and – ‘Oh, God!’ she was already there, making a kind of mewling sound as she convulsed against his mouth.
‘Whoa. Nice,’ he said, his pale eyes alight with smiles as she sat panting.
Slowly, she released her hold on his hair, though her legs continued to quiver.
The moment she did, Xane fell back upon the floor so he lay spread before her. Hers to take. She could touch him, ride him, slide her slick wet pussy against his cock until she came again. ‘Get naked,’ she said, less certain of herself than she sounded.
Pale lights came on in his inky pupils. Xane pulled his T-shirt over his head in one smooth motion. He exhibited none of her wariness about getting naked. One button … two … it seemed to take eternity to pop all five buttons of his fly, even though he gave them the same swift treatment as his shirt. Rather than fully undress, he shoved his jeans down his legs along with the shorts he wore beneath.
Even though she had seen it before, the hard masculine beauty of his body still rendered her awestruck. Xane was the hottest thing on the planet spread out like that, with his cock sticking up at a gravity-defying tilt, just begging for some place warm and wet to hide.
She knew what she ought to do – drop onto her knees, straddle him, cover his body with hers so that his length slipped right up inside her and joined them together. She wasn’t even sure why she didn’t, given the filthy wiggle he gave his hips.
As long as the T-shirt covered her, it’d be all right, wouldn’t it? He wouldn’t be paying attention to a few square inches of her skin.
‘Dani.’ He reached out to her, but instead of taking his hands she pushed them towards his cock.
It was too risky. He’d put his hands under her clothing. He’d feel the scars even if he didn’t see them.
I don’t understand
. She could see his confusion flickering through his thoughts, causing tiny furrows to pinch the corners of his eyes and the space between his brows.
Come here. Splay your hands across my chest. Hold me tight. Hold me down. Use me. Fuck me.
The lyrics to one of his songs played in her head.
Not yet. ‘Will you touch yourself? Show me how you like to get off.’
‘What?’ His mouth fell open as he gasped. ‘All day we’ve waited, we’ve flown right across Europe to get some quality time alone, and you want to watch me stroke it?’
‘Isn’t that what you do when you’re tense? Stroke one off first so you don’t embarrass yourself.’
‘I’m not going to embarrass myself.’
‘Aren’t you?’ She shimmied off the table with the hem of the T-shirt clutched tight to her thighs to prevent it rising.
‘So, if I touch you here, and circle around a bit, maybe stroke a little just here, you won’t come because of that?’