Rockin' the Heart (Hot Wired) (16 page)

“
I have a credit card.”

“
But…she wanted publicity. Can’t get it if we’re not hamming it up for the press with the rest of the band.”

“
Fuck Tab and the press.” He faced her. The dim lighting cast his features in shadows, but his presence bespoke his seriousness. “Consider this façade
over
with.”

Relieved and
oddly disappointed, she exhaled.

“
Starting from tonight we do this for us and no one else.”

“
What?” But he just said….

“
I only agreed with this farce because it gave me the opportunity to be with you, pretend we’re together. After tonight I realized I can’t be with you like this, not with a lie hanging between us.”

Well that settled her confusion. Excitement soared
regardless, and she attempted to tamp the emotion down. “You’re impossible. What about your friendship with Jase? Your position in the band? Our friendship?”

“
My pretending gets muddled with real desires, and I forget to act like a fake boyfriend. I’m
not
impossible, just giving you the fucking truth. Give it a shot for once, Sam. I invite you to
try
the truth where I’m concerned—
we’re
concerned. Jase and the band aren’t the issue.”

Wrapping her arms around her waist, she hugged herself, but
found zero comfort.

He pushed a button and light illuminated the area.
“You cold?”

“
No.”

He pat the seat beside him.
“Come sit with me.”

That close to him would be ruinous for her self-restraint.
“I’m good right here.”

Nails against his
stubble made a scratchy sound when he ran them along his chin. “I knew dating you wouldn’t be easy.”

“
Should I state the obvious?”
Like we’re not dating
? She rubbed her arms hoping the friction would alleviate the goose bumps, but the awkwardness of the moment remained. Wondering what lay behind his imposing stare but unable to take the intensity any longer, she looked away.

In one fluid move, she watched him sit up and lean forward from the corner of her eye. H
e fingered her bare knee, his thumb creating wispy circles against the inside of her leg. She jerked at the contact and slapped at his touch. Their gazes crashed together, and she froze under his observation.

“
Sam, beneath your gruff exterior I know the real you. You’re compassionate and loyal, kind to strangers, the type of woman I want in my life.” He hooked his fingers around the back of her knee and caught her back with his other hand. In the next moment, he dragged her off her seat to straddle his lap. She crash-landed into him with ill grace.

With her knees on either side of his hips, her skirt rode the curve of her thighs and stretched tight over her ass. After a futile effort to pull the attire down and gain some decency
—when she should’ve been attempting a retreat instead—she gave up and created fists at her sides, her nails biting into her flesh. Even given his overbearing conduct, if she touched him her control would shatter.

As it was, t
he heat from his palms on her bare thighs threatened to splinter her resolve. They glided up to the rounded curve of her bottom and back down to her knees. Heat flushed her, and her core pulsed with need. “I’m not playing fair.”

“
No, you’re not.” Her voice sounded breathy, a dead giveaway to her libido.

“
You were hot on stage tonight.”

Thumbs stroking her skin…she wanted to melt against him and enjoy the sensation. Focusing on
the conversation was difficult. “I was playing a part.”

“
The fans loved it.” She couldn’t deny they’d seemed to enjoy her presence. “You want to kiss me without an audience?”

Yes
! “I won’t.”

“
Wasn’t what I asked.”

“
That’s all you’re getting.”

A slight smirk. She bet he read more into her answer than she wanted, but nothing she could
do to help that.

“
I have a present for you.” He wrapped an arm around her back and leaned forward, compressing their chests together.

Upon contact, Sam bit her bottom lip.
He feels so good against me.
How much better would he feel against her naked skin?

She thought he removed something from beneath the seat, but from her
vantage point she couldn’t tell. After he sat back, he maintained his loose hold on her waist and presented her with a glittery purple and pink bag.

For a heartbeat she met his gaze trying to determine the reason for the gift. Positioning the bag between them, she said,
“It’s not my birthday.”

“
You’ll understand when you open it.”

Making an
effort to ignore the glide of his palm along her spine, she jerked the tissue paper out and tossed it over her shoulder. Nestled in a bed of more tissue paper was a light-pink dildo.

Oh. My. God
.
Heath bought me a vibrator
!

Fervor slammed into her. Embarrassment and
excitement jumbled into one.

“
I never thought to see the day when you blushed.” He chuckled, a deep rumble that trembled between her thighs. Sam bit the inside of her cheek to halt the moan that speckled the back of her lips. “Aren’t you going to remove it from the bag?”

“
Have you lost your mind?” A rushed glance toward the window confirmed neither the chauffer nor Tex could see or hear them. “I didn’t actually need this to get the job done.” He closed his eyes and groaned. “I was just egging you on at the sex store.”

“
Why?”

“
To which part?”

“
Why were you egging me on?”

“
Well….” She licked her lips and would’ve rolled up the package to hide the item within, but he stopped her by shoving his hand into the bag. “You were acting like a caveman over Aaron Blue, and I needed to remind you I was not your property.”

The vibrator emerged from the bag clutched between his fingers.
Something about him holding an item
he
purchased for
her
pleasure came across as insanely sensual. But more than that, personal and erotic on a level that should’ve made her uncomfortable, yet strangely warmed her heart.

His thumb
depressed a button on the side and a slight buzzing noise saturated the air. A slight tilt of his wrist and the head of the toy butted against her lips, pulsating on them. “That’ll feel good between your legs.”

Not a virgin or a prude, she couldn
’t help it, but her eyes rounded. This side of Heath directed at her was so…
novel
. Making heads or tails out of how she felt about his mood was next to impossible. Had he been any other man, she wouldn’t be holding herself back.

Why am I with Heath
? If things didn’t work out, it’d be awkward sitting at the holiday table with him. No more uncomfortable than it would already be if they called halts to everything right this moment.

“
How would you know it’d feel good?” Her words were muffled against the device whirring with a soft trill.

The intensity of his gaze zeroed in on her
lips as he rolled the synthetic cock along them. “You really want the answer to that?”

The toy
’s vibrations ramped up when he pressed the button again. The fast-paced whirring fit her temper. Pulse pounding in her ears, she concentrated on dragging air into her lungs. Jealousy slammed into her with all the weight of a comet. “You’ve used them on others.”

Not a question because she
knew
without asking.

A wicked grin
suited as an admission. “Want me to demonstrate?”

Yes
. “No. I have too much pride to be relegated to another conquest.”

The gadget stilled in the center of her
mouth. His silver gaze flicked upward to gauge hers. “Have you not heard a fucking thing I’ve said?”

“
I’ve heard everything.” Using two fingers she pushed the dildo down and away from her. The force of Heath’s stare made her uncomfortable as he watched her. “I’ll recap it for you. You want me. You gave me a pleasure toy and offered to show me how to use it like you have a thousand other women.”

“
You’re forgetting the part where I
want just you
, Sam. Just
you
in my life. The sex comes later to heighten our intimacy.”

“
Mmhm.” Pretty words, but she couldn’t trust the charmer she knew him to be.

A quick twist and Heath relocated her to her back on the bench beside him. He leaned over her. One hand braced next to her head and the other two-fingered the back of her knee to anchor her leg over his hip.
She had no idea where the dildo had gone off to, but she could still hear its vibrations. He rotated his hips, pressing his pelvis against her core. A run-away whimper escaped her lips, and he stared her straight in the eyes. “If all I wanted was sex from you, I could get that effortlessly.”

“
I’m not that easy.” The wetness at her core suggested otherwise. Until Heath, she could say that with conviction.

Without preliminaries, he kissed her, mouth open and tongue
dominating. Zero resistance filtered from her. She caught his shoulders and breathed him in, fighting to claim the advantage with the kiss and failing when he maintained dominance.

His
caress shifted off her knee, gliding up the back of her leg. Extremities splayed wide, he cupped her bottom. Going on instinct, Sam arched into him and angled her pelvis upward.

Fingertips smoothed over her panty-clad core. Sam gasped in shock
, and her eyes jerked wide-open. He watched her as he kissed her, not allowing her a moment for air.

Small nips and kisses to her lips as he pushed a digit against her and the material of her panties clung to her.
“You’re wet.”

No kidding
!

That he could feel how aroused she was through
the fabric should be mortifying, but wasn’t. Suddenly he left her. Disappointment shunted through her body. His departure was for the best. Life would get even more complicated if he continued.

Just as she pushed up on her elbows he buried his face between her legs.

“Heath!” Her arms went out from underneath her, and she slumped against the leather as his tongue dragged over the silk separating his mouth from her most sensitive flesh.

Drag after drag, each one ending at the heart of her desire.
Through the fabric, he clamped his mouth over her clit and executed a suckle-twirling-lick combo.

Sweet baby Jesus, he
’s a master at
that
!
He could give lessons on the skill.
Should
give lessons as a humanitarian act.

Sam sprinted to the edge of climaxing. He thumbed her opening, pressed the silk into her wet heat.
Her legs vibrated as hot fire consumed her core and spread through her limbs. In a matter of seconds she’d be orbiting the universe.

He stopped.
No!

She would
’ve hauled him back to her if he hadn’t extricated her grip from his hair.

Heath kissed her wrist as he stretched over her, feeding her his
weight one pound at a time. “See, I could’ve made you come and been inside you before you finished.”

“
You are Satan incarnate.” This had been an exercise in how easy she was and how he successfully managed his longings. The bastard. She’d been close thanks to him, and he just quit. “Evil.”

He nipped the thin flesh on her wrist
before scratching his nails gently along her arm and cupping her nape. “I didn’t want to abandon my position either. Knowing you were about to combust beneath me. Goddamn, brat, I wanted to push you all the way. You can feel what you do to me.” He rotated his pelvis against her achy core. His hard length pressed against the right spot, and she slapped her hold over his denim-covered ass, pulling him tight to her body. “You react to me the way no other woman ever has. Real. No falseness in your response. I like you at my mercy, soft and hot, liquid flesh to mold to my desire. Beneath me, legs trembling and on the verge of climaxing... I want you like that. All the time.” A flick of his fingers against her clitoris and she whimpered, a harsh breath requesting mercy. “But I
don’t
want you like that either.”

“
I’m confused.”

“
I don’t want to seduce you into my bed. I want you there because that’s what you desire as much as I do.” His touch moved away from her pussy. For a brief moment he leaned over and then sat back with the vibrator in his grip. “I put the long life batteries in it for you.”