“Silly boy,” I murmur, bringing my hands up the sides of his torso, feeling the muscles bunch beneath them as I go. “Trixie’s for men.” I can’t resist the taunt—the play off the cereal commercial—because he sure as hell just proved to me he’s a one hundred percent skilled man but I need to keep this simple. The way he’s touching me and not rolling over and snoring like so many others have done is making this moment a bit too intimate for me, making it a bit too real. And hell yes, I’ll take something real but I also know that with the real comes the heartbreak that’s inevitable and so I defuse the feelings from finding permanence with humor.

“Wow!” he exclaims in jest, eyebrows raised and fingers finding the ticklish spots on my rib cage. And at first it’s innocent in nature when I writhe beneath him but as my breasts rub against the firmness of his chest and the condom he hasn’t removed yet that’s still slick with my arousal slides over my thigh, desire fires anew. My breath hitches when his hands find my hair and fist in it before his mouth meets mine in a kiss that surges with hunger. “Guess I better show you again how much of a man I can be then.”

He pushes up off me, leaving me cold and wanting as he saunters over to grab another condom from my drawer-o-protection, his ass a sight I could stare at all day long, and all I can think is Pretty please.

“I thought you were going to edge me out. What happened to that?” I throw the taunt at him as I hear the telltale tear of foil, my body already stirring back awake with the anticipation of getting more of him.

He turns back and looks at me, the moonlight soft on his skin and confidence reflected in his posture. “Hmm. If I’m not mistaken, it was you just screaming my name, right?”

“It was a moment of weakness,” I lie, savoring the smile he graces me with because we both know damn well it was more than that.

“I think it was a whole lot of skill,” he says as he walks slowly toward me, erection bobbing with each step as I scrape my eyes over his shadow in the night. He crawls on the bed and hovers over me, our bodies void of any contact. “Skill … and this weakness I seem to have when it comes to you.”

My heart swells at his words and the only thought that passes through my mind is, rocker trumps racer, without a doubt.



Chapter 16


QUINLAN

Through dreamy eyes and a sleep-fogged brain with the warmth of his body beside mine, I take in everything. The dark stubble shadowing his jaw that begs me to reach out and rub my fingers over its coarseness. A tangible reminder that this is real, last night was real … the sudden onslaught of feelings I have for him is real. The sheet is somewhere on the floor, both of us bathed only in the sunlight streaming in through the half-open blinds that were forgotten last night in our pleasured exertion.

He shifts some, turning on his back and moving his arm opposite me behind his head. I watch his biceps flex and trace the line of his body to where I can see the symbol inked into his skin on the inside of his wrist. I don’t want to move too much and disrupt his sleep—this is my chance to memorize specifics about him—but I angle my head some to catch the tattoo.

The music note is clear as day sitting on the inside of his wrist but another symbol placed toward his elbow isn’t easy to decipher. I stare a bit longer and as much as I want to slide a little farther away so that I can see the markings on his upper bicep, I decide this feeling is way too heavenly to leave. I can look later, ask later.

I snuggle into him, nestling my face into the crook of his arm and torso, and return my hand to his abdomen so I can feel it rising and falling softly beneath my palm. I think of last night. Of the murmured words and how Hawke completely owned my body and every reaction he coaxed from me. How we lay spent and exhausted but riding that first-time high in comforting silence as I wondered what happens next. Was he going to call Axe to come get him or spend the night and awaken to that awkward silence?

And the best answer was neither.

After a few minutes where we let the sweat cool from our bodies and our labored breaths settle into a normal rhythm, the bed shifted some and the next thing I knew his hands were pulling me into the heat of his body.

“Hmm,” he murmured into the crown of my head, followed by a kiss. “I’m exhausted.”

My soul content and body satisfied, I trailed a finger over his chest and thought about how he had most definitely given me the toe-curling sex that I had been without. “Can’t imagine why … a show, drinking with the band, a pissing match with Luke, a—”

“Rocker trumps racer every time, sweetness,” he said and the smile returned, my heart swelling despite my conscience telling it not to at the endearment. “Besides, it wasn’t any of those things that made me sleepy. No,” he said, the pull of sleep thickening his voice, “it was you and the incredible sex we just had. And then again.”

“And then again,” I responded, happiness tingeing my tone and my ego preening with his compliment.

My mind drifts fleetingly to Luke and a surge of guilt riles my peace. I’m not sure what else I could have done last night. He was hell-bent on attending the after party and then the shot fest that followed was indirectly my doing but I have no claim on him and can’t control his actions. Still, whatever way I try to spin it, I feel like shit that he’s going to wake up sometime today nursing a wicked hangover while I’m waking up sexed and satisfied.

Hawkin stirs again beside me, mumbles softly, and I can feel the minute awareness jolts his body awake. He squeezes me tightly against him and says, “Good morning,” against the crown of my head. And I used to think there was nothing sexier than a man’s voice in the morning, sleepy and gravelly, but I was wrong. Way wrong.

Because Hawke’s voice in particular is sex personified in every way possible.

I close my eyes and enjoy the comfort between us as he wakes up and I realize I’m screwed here. Because if I thought I was going to be able to step back, then I was sadly mistaken. This—him—me—us—is just too damn good for me not to get wrapped up in it.

“I gotta pee like a racehorse,” he says with a soft chuckle as he releases me, then the sound of his feet shuffling over the floor fills the room. I scurry up and out of the bed when he shuts the door to my guest bathroom and scrub the alcohol from last night from my teeth and throw some water on my face. I meet my eyes in the mirror and even though it’s been hours since we fell asleep, my cheeks are still flushed and eyes still alive with desire.

I’m sitting up in bed when he returns, his white T-shirt slipped over my head. I know it’s presumptuous but if I’m wearing it then that means he’s not and hell if that’s not a fine sight to take in first thing in the morning. He saunters toward the bed, completely unashamed of his nakedness, and fuck if my body isn’t already responding to his.

This is going to be a serious problem. I can already tell.

He bends over at the side of the bed and tosses my covers back onto the mattress. “Here, you look cold.”

“No, I’m good,” I reply as I notice his eyes wandering down to my chest and when I follow his gaze I find my nipples hard and visible against the flimsy white cotton of his shirt. I look back up to meet the amusement in his eyes.

“Well, if you’re not cold,” he says, crawling back onto the bed and leaning against the headboard behind him, “I think I need to inspect what exactly the problem seems to be beneath my shirt.” He reaches his hands out to grab my hips and shift me so that I sit astride his lap.

We both emit a groan at the exquisite pain of my pussy centering over his hardening dick. And yes I’m a tad sore from last night, but the havoc he can wreak on my system is worth the momentary discomfort I know he’ll take away with his mind-numbing pleasure.

We stare at each other for a moment as we control the urge even though sleepy sex—hell any kind of sex—with Hawke is top priority on my agenda. My eyes are drawn to the symbols decorating his left shoulder and top part of his bicep. With his eyes on me, I reach out to touch them, trace their lines, and I’m a tad surprised when I look back to see the flush staining his cheeks.

The man is adored, scrutinized, objectified daily by women everywhere but in the small confines of my bedroom, he’s shy in front of me. There’s something about that juxtaposition that’s beyond endearing to me. Makes me wonder what he was like as a little boy with those storm cloud–colored eyes of his.

“So many symbols but so different from Gizmo’s,” I murmur more to myself than to him. Hawkin’s are denoted symbols, lone and unattached, while Gizmo’s are continuous drawings flowing from one into another. Giz’s are like art in a sense and his are more like a statement, and I wonder what story they tell. I trace my finger down the inside of his arm to the ink I noticed on his wrist earlier but can now study. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a treble clef,” he answers, to which I glance up before rolling my eyes.

“I know that. What’s this one?” I ask, pointing to the one lined up behind it.

“It’s the Adinkra symbol for strength,” he says quietly, flexing his fist so that his forearm tightens and I can look at it closer. I follow the swirl of the loops with my fingertips.

“Why this? Why Adinkra?” For some reason I know the question is going to strike a nerve, and yet I ask it regardless because I want to know more about him. Need to. I look back up at him in time to see the pain pass through his eyes before he tucks it away. We hold our gaze steady as he battles whatever it is he doesn’t want me to see, silence suddenly heavy in our first morning together.