He wasn’t sure which of them was holding their breath more.
Xane relaxed his muscles as she feathered her touch over his entrance. He’d done this often enough and with thicker objects than her finger to know he didn’t need too much of a warm-up. It took only minimal pressure for the tip of her finger to dip inside. He groaned, signalling his approval, and then lifted towards her to prompt her to go a little deeper.
‘You’re squeezing me really tight,’ she said.
‘Yeah – imagine what that grasp is like around a cock.’
She made a funny sort of hiccupping sound. ‘You mean when you have anal sex with a woman.’
‘Sure,’ he agreed, not really concentrating on her words because he was so focused on timing the rise and fall of his hips with the thrusts of her fingers. ‘Add another one.’
Yes
, he hissed inwardly, when she did exactly as he asked without any preamble. A thrill immediately zapped through his behind and ran straight into his cock. ‘Fuck, that’s good.’ His erection bucked upright in agreement. It had been a while since he’d done this, and his body proved more than a little eager.
Xane pushed up onto all fours so he could wrap a hand around his shaft. He snatched a glance at Dani too. A golden glow seemed to ignite inside her irises at the sight of his erection. She reached out to touch him immediately, covering his hand with hers.
‘Don’t stop,’ he urged.
‘I’m not going to. I’ll do what you want for as long as you want me to do it.’
Xane licked his lips. Dare he believe in that? He rarely banked on for ever, because he knew from experience that nothing ever lasted that long. Maybe if he took a chance and believed in what he had this time, with Dani, it might work out. Normally women fled when they realised there was more to him than his stage persona.
Xane pushed Dani’s hand away from his cock, hoping that would let her know where he wanted her to concentrate.
Finesse didn’t play a very big part in the following few minutes. He pumped quickly, selfishly sought release. The excitement of her touch coupled with his own practised masturbation drove him to a swift climax. ‘Oh, yeah. That’s good. That’s good.’ He came hard, making a mess of his hand and the bedding.
Dani nuzzled against his back until, wrung out, he rolled over to enjoy a rather glorious stretch. ‘Well, thank you.’ He tugged her down on top of him in order to claim a deep kiss.
‘Happy?’ she asked, carefully avoiding touching anything with her fingertips.
Dammit, she was sweet. He nodded. ‘But you’re not.’ She wasn’t frowning but her expression did seem guarded somehow. ‘What’s up?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Dani?’
‘Have you done that a lot?’
‘I have sex a lot,’ he replied, laughing away her concerns. Why this should bother her afterwards, when other things hadn’t, he wasn’t sure. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, ‘Should I fuck you in the arse next time, so you can see what it’s like? Will that seem more normal to you?’
‘No,’ she replied firmly. ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’
Xane held her gaze, trying to read the level of the truth in her words. She did genuinely seem to mean no. OK, time to back away from that suggestion. ‘Wanna take a shower with me?’
Her unease cleared. ‘You bet.’
Dani virtually bounced out of bed, which perhaps betrayed how twitchy she remained, but also treated him to the sight of her gloriously naked. It seemed that, for once, she wasn’t trying to hide those scars of hers. He watched her walk ahead of him to the bathroom, her heart-shaped bottom swaying, enticing him to follow. Thinking about it now, and seeing those marks by daylight, they weren’t hideous; they’d been made with care and might even be considered artistic. They formed a band, almost like a girdle around her hips and lower back. Only his suspicions about how they’d come into being stopped him from openly admiring the skill involved in making them so neat. The fact Dani took such pains to hide them told him they weren’t her choice of body art, unlike the many tattoos that graced his skin. They made him wish he really could have been there for her in person while she’d been going through whatever crap it was that had produced those cuts.
Preoccupied with thoughts of what she’d just done, Dani stepped under the shower-head on autopilot. She didn’t quite know what to think about it and was still prodding around the edges of her feelings on the subject, trying to ascertain whether there was an element of fear or hurt involved. Finding out that Xane liked to indulge in anal play was hardly ground-breaking news; most of the guys she’d met seemed to have some sort of lurid fascination with it. The bit that made her twitchy was that normally those fantasies involved the guy having the girl – which, yeah, Xane had just suggested – but that wasn’t what they’d just done.
She’d put her fingers inside him. Did the fact that he liked that signify something, or simply demonstrate that he was comfortable with his body and knew what he liked?
She couldn’t bear it if he said he liked men.
She couldn’t deal with that. Wouldn’t go through what her mum had been through. She couldn’t face feeling so churned up again.
‘Your dad’s gone, Dani … You’re not his priority any more … He’s left … He no longer loves us … He has a boyfriend now … Hates women … Isn’t natural … He only loves men … He fucks men, Dani. And they fuck him too.
Xane owned a vibrator, a lifelike, very large vibrator, and readily admitted he liked anal sex.
Get a grip, Dani
. Neither of those things made him gay. Xane, along with Ash Gore and probably the rest of Black Halo, was up there on the A list of international playboys. He was constantly surrounded by beautiful women who threw themselves at him. She’d had personal experience of exactly how literally. Also, Xane was perfectly matter-of-fact about how many women he’d been with. If he was into men, she was sure he’d have been open about that too.
Wouldn’t he?
‘Room in here for me?’ Xane asked, stepping into the glass cubicle behind her, which was a joke, because there was easily enough space for four people his size, and he towered over her when she was without her high heels. His arms encircled her waist and drew her against the heat of his strong body.
She didn’t look at him, frightened her suspicions would show on her face.
Xane snaked one hand upwards to encompass her breasts, the other down between her thighs. ‘Hmm,’ he purred. ‘Some kindly person seems to have left a nymph in my shower. Do you like magic, nymph? I thought I might work some with my magic wand.’
His magic wand seemed to be still recuperating from its recent excitement. It was only when a tingle ran through her skin that she realised he’d brought one of his toys with him.
Dani turned around in his arms, so they were facing, lip to lip. His sheet of dark hair framed his face and clung to his shoulders. Beads of water already sparkled on his skin and mottled the inks of his tattoos. His pale eyes were full of smouldering coals. Considering how he looked – so perfect it made her chest hurt – and how horny being in his presence made her, he’d never need a toy to warm her up.
‘Show me that,’ she demanded.
‘What, this?’
He hadn’t brought the rather too lifelike thing with him, thank God! Instead, he held a much smaller wand; long, slender and almost transparent save for the vaguest hint of blue.
‘You’re not interested in this little thing, are you?’
Wow, he made such an appealing tease. Everything about him was right, his smirk, the exact nature of his poise, the way his look simultaneously communicated ‘come on’ and ‘try me’. It reminded her of the attitude he displayed on stage.
Thick water droplets hung in his eyelashes. Others covered his skin, linked up and formed tiny rivulets that cascaded over his chest and the lean, hard muscles of his abs. Dani reached out to trace one of the twin lines that bordered either side of his groin. He really was the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on, and the fact that he was blond, low down where nobody else saw, got her in the chest every time. Somehow his true nature, his true colouring became a powerful secret between them. Xane wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t the demon he portrayed on stage. He was an angel. Her angel, be it a very, very dirty and wicked one.
‘You’re the only thing I need to get excited.’
‘You’re spurning my buzzy stick?’
Dani wiped the water out of her eyes. ‘I didn’t say that.’ She placed her hand over his, and guided the wand up to eye level. It was an inoffensive little thing, not unlike one she had at home and regularly used while fantasising about being in exactly this sort of situation with this man.
‘Do you know you’re supposed to test them against the tip of your nose?’
Ginny had taught her that the night they met.
Dani directed the buzzing tip against her nose, and then to Xane’s.
‘I prefer to test mine other places. Like here, for example.’ He turned the little dial in the base higher, and then, grinning, tested it against one of her nipples, which immediately steepled.
Shocked by how fiercely she’d reacted. Dani rubbed at the offending peak, but that only seemed to exacerbate the tingling sensation, and Xane was far, far from done with her.
‘Or here. This is another favourite spot.’ This time he angled the device downwards and pushed it over the curve of her stomach to the top of her mons. ‘And, definitely, here is the best one.’ He touched it for a split second to her clit.
Dani’s limbs jellified. She’d have fallen if he hadn’t been there to catch her and press her tight against the tiles. The strength and warmth of his body surrounded her, but one hand remained between her thighs, tormenting her with that intoxicating buzz.
‘Turn around. Let’s play a little game.’
‘What sort of game?’ she asked, turning before he answered. Xane moulded himself to her back again. Whereas before he’d been soft, his interest had definitely risen.
‘A buzzy one.’
‘What, like a quiz? Press if it’s the right answer?’
‘That could be fun, but no. I was thinking more along the lines of an experiment.’ Suddenly his fingers were seeking entrance to her body, and then next he was ready for action and pushing inside her. Once he was there he didn’t move, though, just held her close. ‘The question is, which of us do you suppose is going to come first?’
Her. Without a doubt, and that was before he rubbed the wand against her clit again, sending a whole damn minefield of explosions off inside her pussy. ‘Oh!’ Dani’s eyes fluttered closed. ‘Xane, I can’t do this for long. It’s going to make me come … Oh!’ She never did manage to say ‘too fast’, because her body was already wired into that frantic hum. It tingled right through her pussy, sending her muscles into spasm after spasm of glorious pleasure. ‘Ah … oh, man!’ She probably sounded like a stuck record but eloquence had deserted her. He was still hardly moving, but her muscles were clamping tight around him, and it felt bloody fantastic.
‘I know, sweetheart. I know. I can feel it. Let go.’
Let go?
‘Trust me. I’ve got you.’
His arms supported her. He wouldn’t let her fall. Xane would keep her safe.
‘Go with it.’
She was already gone. Clamped to him impossibly tight, his black hair plastered to her skin, his cock filling her. He held her and he didn’t let her fall, while her climax crashed her through barrier after barrier. At some point during that flight she felt him jerk inside her too, and knew that he wasn’t only supporting her but flying right alongside.
‘Enough, enough.’ When she eventually pushed his hand away and knocked the wand to the floor, she followed its sharp descent, sagging to the base of the shower, her body fuzzy and lethargic. Xane sat down beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. ‘Hungry?’ he asked, as she rested her head against him.
‘Knackered. I don’t think I can keep up with you.’ Her body had never seen so much action. She was positively brimming with demented glee, but her muscles were definitely starting to revolt. She was ready for a massage, but suggesting so might give him ideas.
‘Maybe we’d better take it easy for the afternoon, give you time off to recuperate.’ That twisted grin of his didn’t convince her he actually meant them to rest. ‘How does brunch and sightseeing sound?’
‘Are you allowed out in daylight?’ Dani wondered aloud, her personal fears resurfacing about their being spotted. Their experiences the previous evening had shown her how often he was recognised. She didn’t want her picture to accidentally end up with his inside a magazine.
‘That’s what dark glasses were invented for.’
Somehow she didn’t think they would stop
him
being identified. And given that his band mates presumably knew where he was, weren’t they likely to have sent someone to collect him?
A horrid image of Xane being snatched off the street and bundled into the back of a cab, leaving her stranded, sprang fully formed into her mind. What would she do then? Phoning home for help wouldn’t be an option.
‘Maybe we should stay here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ He patted her bare leg. ‘We’ll get some fresh air, grab something to eat and then check out the casino. You did want to see it, right? I mean, it’s almost compulsory if you come here.’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ she agreed. She did quite want to see it, and in fact all the other sights. There just remained that niggling worry about being seen and identified, and her image ending up somewhere her mum would see it, because then all hell would break loose.
Despite Dani’s numerous reservations, strolling about the city in the sunshine, holding onto Xane’s hand, proved a largely enjoyable if nerve-wracking affair. She’d really have preferred to stay indoors and hidden, but Xane was having none of that, unless you considered the wearing of shades an effective disguise.
Dani suspected his insistence on being himself, or at least the Xane people knew, was his way of sticking up two fingers at the band and proclaiming the fact that he wouldn’t be cowed or dictated to. Perhaps it was partly defensive too. Xane the rock god was bold and brash. He didn’t fear anything. The man beneath that mask was far more easily hurt and needed shielding.