Savage Rhythm (17 page)

Declan stopped, breathed, flexed his fists.

Adra was right, to some extent. He was involved in what had happened that night, with what Bethany had done, what Soren had let happen. It wasn’t like it hadn’t affected him; it had fucked him up royally for a while. Declan had to accept the possibility that maybe he wasn’t talking to Molly about it for more than just noble reasons. The woman had a tendency to see right through bullshit, after all. Maybe he was worried she’d see through his.

Maybe he was worried he’d been wrong to kick Soren out this whole time.

“Fuck me,” he muttered.

Declan got that sick feeling, that bullshit that had nearly ruined the tour. He always knew the Hoboken show would be the hardest for him, but damn, he did not expect for it to hit him like this. Especially not after he’d had Molly. Not after she’d said she’d be his sub. He’d felt invincible since that moment, untouchable, invulnerable. It had only gotten better when he’d seen he was right, that submission had helped her, had actually gotten through all those defenses she had up all the time. That she’d been
happy
.

Nothing could compare to that. No memory, no matter how shitty, could top that.

And now he watched her through the restaurant glass and saw that look again, that sad, worried, empathetic look, the kind of thing that made him want to move worlds to put a different expression on her face. Whatever she was thinking about, whatever she was talking about, it wasn’t a happy thing.

He frowned. Not on his watch. And she was ready for him as a Dom. For what he needed, right now.

Declan walked into the restaurant and ignored everyone else. He was used to being recognized. Didn’t matter. There was just Molly now, sitting in that booth, looking right back at him with the same need he felt.

And something else, too. Something that looked like…concern.

“Hey man, we were just finishing up,” a man said. It came from the other side of the booth. Brian.

Declan hadn’t even noticed him.

“Good.” Declan looked at Molly. “On the bus. Now.”

He saw her try to suppress a smile, put on her serious face. She couldn’t quite manage to hide the way his order turned her on.

“This is an interview, Declan,” she said.

“It’s over, though,” Brian said hastily, getting up. “You know it is. It shoulda been over before it even began. Remember our deal, though, Molly.”

“It’s not an interview anymore,” Declan said, not even caring about whatever deal Brian had made with Molly, or what he’d told her. Which was a good thing. If they’d just been having lunch, his possessive instincts might have kicked in, and Lord knew he was already fired up.

“On the bus. Now.”

Molly waited until Brian was well out of earshot, looking up at him with those eyes the whole time, giving him all sorts of ideas. Then she said, “Yes, sir.”

He was sure she put some extra swish in her hips on the way to the bus.

He was sure she knew what he wanted.

Could she possibly know why?

Fuck me, total honesty.

Declan nodded at the driver, who was smoking a cigarette out in front of the bus, and closed the door behind him. The driver would know not to come knocking. Hell, everybody would know. Declan didn’t care if they were late getting back on the road. Some things were more important. Like having another hit of Molly Ward.

She walked right up and jumped on the table they all used, giving him an innocent look. “What was it you wanted?” she asked.

He growled.

“You know what it is I want,” he said.

She smiled.

“But first, tell me why you looked worried when you saw me,” he demanded.

Molly opened her mouth, stopped. Frowned.

“Molly,” he said. “Tell me. The rule is honesty. Don’t test discipline before we even have a contract.”

That
got her talking.

“Are you ok?” she asked, point blank.

Declan just had to stare at her for a second. She was asking
him
if he was ok? What the fuck, was she psychic? It was only about thirty seconds ago that he’d been wondering the same thing himself, whether or not he’d screwed everything up with Soren and the band, whether he’d been wrong, and here she was, vibing on it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m finding out.”

“Like me.”

“Like you.”

Molly stared back at him. Declan didn’t think he was alone in finding this strange, whatever went on between them, however you might explain it. Her chest was rising in quick, shallow little movements, her hands gripping the edge of the table. She wanted him.

He needed her.

Declan moved forward, put a hand on each knee and spread her legs slightly, tracing a line up her the inside of her thigh until he hit the fringed edge of her cutoffs.

“You’re going to wear a skirt at the next show,” he said, his voice tight, controlled. “If you don’t have one, a roadie will go get you one. But I need to see you up front in Hoboken, and I need to know I can have you at any moment. I need to know I can stop the show, haul you off, and be inside you in less than ten seconds if I need to.”

“If you need to?” she asked. Her voice was tiny, wondering.

“If I need to,” he said, slipping his thumb inside her shorts. Fuck. She was wet. “Or if I want to. Now strip.”

The command took a moment to register. He was pleased to see that when it did, she didn’t hesitate to jump off the table and pull her shirt over her head and shimmy out of her shorts. Molly only looked once at the door, nervous, before she shrugged off her bra.

Declan couldn’t help himself. He reached out and held her breasts, loving the weight in his hands, the way her nipples peaked so readily at his touch.

“Panties,” he said gruffly.

Molly was red-faced already, bending only slightly to get them over her hips. She gave one last anxious look at the door and then gasped when he pinched her nipple.

“Put this on me,” he said, fishing a condom out of his back pocket. He was never going to be without them now, not until—if ever—she got comfortable going without. He wanted nothing more than to feel her all over him, skin to skin, but that was something that was going to have to wait.

She wasn’t as nervous as she’d been before. For someone who’d gone from zero sex to sex on demand, she was handling it pretty well.

And the look she gave him as she pulled down his fly…

“Fuck,” he grunted, and grabbed hold of her hair. “Quicker.”

Now
she was nervous. He saw her swallow slightly when she saw the size of him up close, and he thought about what he could do with those lips. What he would do with those lips.

Just in time she got the condom rolled down, and he pulled her up and threw her on the table, loving that shocked little giggle she gave as he grabbed each of her ankles.

“Ask nicely,” he said.

She groaned. She hated having to talk. That’s why he made her, even if it drove him absolutely freaking crazy, just having to look at her, spread in front of him like that…

“Please,” she said. “Please fuck me, Declan.”

He pushed into her so hard she moved backwards on the table, a little gasp escaping her lips. He growled and grabbed her hips, pulling her back onto him as he surged forward, and Molly arched her back with a scream as he filled her completely. Ruthlessly. It still wasn’t enough. It was never enough for him, not with her.

Declan pounded into her while she struggled to regain her breath, her pussy clenching around him, her hands searching for something to hold. Molly finally put them above her head, pressing into the side of the bus just below the window overlooking the table and booth, and threw her head back with a cry.

He reached for her breasts, bouncing beautifully right in front of him with every stroke, and greedily kneaded the flesh in his hands. Molly tensed, nearly pushing herself up, moaning, and Declan responded with a hard thrust and a vicious pinch to both nipples.

Molly came even more viciously. It shocked her eyes wide open, her pussy clasping down on him like a vise, so much so that he had to pause and hold back. She rose from the table, her abs straining, her mouth open in a silent scream, looking at him in wonder.

Holy fuck
, he thought.

He pushed her back on the table and fucked her with wild abandon, taking what he wanted from her, until she was slick with sweat, her eyes wide and unseeing, sobbing his name as she came around him, again and again and again.

When he finally collapsed on top of her, Declan was already thinking of all the things he was going to do to her with that information. All the things he could do when they finally got to Volare. All the things he could with the proper equipment.

“I am going to make you hurt so good,” he said into her chest.

He heard her pleasurable sigh, felt her hands in his hair. If he could stay buried in her forever, it would be fine by him. He knew he’d have to deal with his responsibilities too soon—the show, the band, and, most importantly, Molly herself. He’d have to talk to her about the baby shower. He’d have to find out more about her, figure out what made her tick, help her discover what she liked.

But for right now?

Fucking heaven.

chapter
18

Molly couldn’t stop smiling. She felt like an idiot. No, she probably
was
an idiot for agreeing to this ridiculous situation. How was she supposed to be a hard-nosed investigative…biographer, or whatever was her official job title, if she was also submitting sexually to Declan Donovan? It wasn’t a theoretical question; how was she supposed to do her job—any job—if she was constantly having sex?

Constantly getting fucked. And fucked
well
. With always the possibility that he’d demand sex at any given time.

Yeah, no wonder she couldn’t stop smiling.

And now she was wearing this tiny, itty little bitty skirt, the kind of thing she was sure showed her ass every time she moved, and she was wearing it with the knowledge that she was wearing it
for him
. It made everything she did erotic. Like foreplay. Every time she moved, every time she felt the fabric lift in the breeze…

She was in her own little X-rated fantasy world. Too bad she was also standing on a sidewalk in Hoboken, getting in the way.

It was chaos once again. A local radio station was supposed to announce the show only an hour before Savage Heart went on, but the news had leaked. Either the club itself, or the opening act, or the police—clearly someone had gotten the proper permits this time; the police had closed down an entire block behind the club for their bus and the vans and trailers of the smaller bands. Anyway, someone had opened their mouth. And Hoboken found out.

It was a mob scene. Almost as bad as Springfield. Only this time, the cops were prepared; the mob was on the other side of heavily reinforced barricades. They’d broken out now in a drunken chorus of “October Moon” and it didn’t seem like they’d stop anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the roadies had to set up and the guys had to get ready. The cops wouldn’t let her within ten feet of the barricades, and everyone else was too busy for an interview. So Molly was standing in the middle of the street while everyone else had a job to do and the world frothed with fan mania around her.

Well, almost everyone. One dude kept staring. Kept sneaking looks. The kind you could actually feel slime across your skin.

And now he was back.

“So are you with one of the bands?” he said. He was skinny and tall, older than Molly thought at first glance, just looking at the studded belt he wore and his mangy faux-hawk. He had some wrinkles around the eyes, the mouth. Nicotine stained teeth and sallow skin. None of that was so bad, except for the creepiness.

He had sidled up to her. An actual sidle.

“I don’t think they’d let me back here if I wasn’t,” she said.

“You know Savage Heart is playing tonight,” Faux-Hawk said. He gave her a crooked smile. “I could probably get you in to meet them.”

Molly stifled a laugh. She didn’t want to be rude, but that was funny.

“You know,” Faux-Hawk said, coming close enough to touch her hand with his, “if I thought you were nice.”

No longer funny.

She recoiled from that touch, knowing just what he was offering, or rather demanding, from her. Immediately she heard Robbie’s voice in her head, calling her a slut, and it made her furious. She’d almost thought she was free of that. She’d had so long now without feeling that way, without feeling dirty, without feeling bad about the things that made her feel good, and this asshole comes along and…

“Back off.”

It was Declan. Always Declan. Showing up like he had that first day on the dock at Marina del Ray, except this time he was furious. Tall, thick, muscled, contained caveman. Molly felt his heavy arm come around his shoulders, and this time she gratefully leaned into him, wanting that protection. Not so much from the idiot with the faux-hawk—she could handle him—as from her own thoughts. Nobody got protective of sluts. She hated that she even thought that way, it was such a double standard; she didn’t believe women could be “sluts,” except when she felt like one.

Faux-hawk tried to play it cool. “Oh, hey, Declan, what’s up? I’m with Radio Riot, and—”

“Not tonight you’re not.”

“Well, I’m not, like,
in
the band, I help them out, but sometimes—”

“I said get the fuck out,” Declan repeated. His voice had that deep, bottomless timbre that was both supremely controlled and deeply intimidating. Molly freaking loved it, even if it made her feel, in a primitive way, a little afraid. “You think you can insult my woman and then come chill out at the show? Get the fuck out before I throw you over that barricade.”

My woman.

Faux-hawk seemed to focus more on the physical threat than Declan’s declaration of…what? Ownership? Possession?

More?

No. No. Declan had specifically said that he didn’t do relationships or commitments or whatever. She had to keep that straight in her head. She had to make sure she didn’t forget that she wasn’t allowed to fall in love for her own sake, either, or she would be well and truly fucked.