Joy Ride (18 page)

“It’s not a trick, babe. I promise.” He moved his head just enough to feather a kiss over her lips. “I’d never do anything to make you uncomfortable or unhappy. I just thought it would be a fun way to get to know each other a little.” He tightened his arm around her. “So. You can go first. One question.”

“Hmm. Let’s see.” She chewed her lower lip, a habit he’d come to recognize as her nervous meter. “All right. How did you start playing the bass guitar?”

“Easy. My dad played bass in a band in high school. He hung on to that guitar until I got old enough for him to pass it along to me.”

“So your
father
plays guitar?” She stared at him.

“Yes, but don’t start thinking he was some long-haired freak rockin’ around the country. He and the guys played clubs around the area while they were in college and for a while afterward until they all got too busy with work and families.”

“That sounds….” She frowned. “Not like what I expected.

He laughed. “I figured. See? I told you I might not be what you thought. Okay. My turn. What’s your favorite color?”

She answered immediately. “Blue.”

“A good color. My favorite, too.”

“Me, again,” she said. “When did you start playing in a band?”

“In high school, just like my dad. Favorite food.”

“Pizza. Are any of the people in this band ones you played with in high school?”

“No. Favorite season.”

“Spring.”

“I like winter.” Now why had that just popped out? Because he liked the cooler weather so much or because it was an opposite season from the one she named? He’d never really given it much thought.

“Really?” She tilted her head back slightly to look at him. “You like the cold?”

“I like having a fire going. This house didn’t have a fireplace so I put in a gas-fired one.” He laughed. “If we ever get out of the bedroom, I’ll show it to you.”

“I love fireplaces.” Her smile was unexpectedly shy. “They’re great in winter, aren’t they?”

“Uh huh.” He studied her face, saw the hint of a smile curve her lips. “Maybe this winter we can cuddle in front of mine.”
Because I want you to still be around when winter shows up. And not just this one
. “What else do you love?”

“Mmm, let me think.” She wrinkled her forehead in a frown of concentration. “Warm chocolate chip cookies.”

He grinned. “No kidding? Me, too. The world’s best comfort food.”

She looked a little surprised. “Really? You need comforting?”

Marc didn’t think that was such a startling fact but again, he was starting to understand more about Music Lady and her perception of his life. He could tell by the expressions chasing across her face with each answer that she was seeing him in a different light. Much more three-dimensional. Maybe even more acceptable in the world she grew up in.

“We all need comforting now and then, Music Lady.” He stroked her cheek. “It’s part of who we are. Who
I
am, anyway.” He teased the strands of purple hair. “But then why the hair? The new duds? New wrappings?”

“Because I—” She tensed against him.

He could feel her withdrawing and wanted to kick himself for being so stupid. Getting her to reveal pieces of herself was like a complex treasure hunt and he had to tread very carefully. pulled her a little closer. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal. I told you, I like the look. It’s sharp. And if you’re comfortable with it, that’s all that counts.”

And so it went, until he’d told her all about the battle with his parents to skip college and stick with his music. Their acceptance finally and their support. Meeting Rick at a party and putting Lightnin’ together. The struggle for recognition. In return he’d learned enough tidbits about her to begin piecing together a picture of the woman she really was. Smart. Funny. Sometimes shy.

“Okay, enough Twenty Questions for tonight.”

Emma didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. On the one hand, she wanted to know so much more about Marc. Each question and answer had been a revelation, shaping him differently in her mind. On the other hand, the more she exposed her inner self to him, the greater the danger was out of her depth. She needed to just be Music Lady with him, someone with spark and a newly found adventurous spirit. Someone who could be sexually uninhibited with him, fulfilling fantasies she didn’t even know she’d had.

She still lived with the fear that Marc would take a look at her one day and think she wasn’t enough to satisfy him. And the specter of her parents always hovered just out of range in her thoughts.

He lowered his head to hers, his kiss this time hungry, almost needy. But Emma had an answering need, the thing that kept driving her back into his arms. One small taste of him would never be enough. His flavor was more intoxicating than any alcoholic drinks she’d ever had and had seeped into her system.

He licked the inner surface of her lips before thrusting inside and touching every inner surface. She answered him just as greedily, sliding her tongue over his and pushing it into his mouth.

She shivered at the touch of his fingers along the line of her neck and over the hollow of her throat where her pulse was beating fast again. She remembered the first night they were together, how unsure of herself she was, how hesitant as he coaxed responses from her. But each time they were together she became a little bolder, a little less reticent. Willing to be a more active participant.

Pulling his mouth from hers, he slid moist kisses over her cheek and along the sweep of her jaw, nipping the soft skin and soothing it with tiny licks. Heat exploded inside her. He cupped her breast and his thumb rasped the nipple already sensitive from their earlier lovemaking. She gasped slightly when he pinched it and arched her body up to his touch, wanting more.

“Making love with you is like making music,” he murmured, his lips against her breast. “Your body is like my guitar, responding to every touch and caress. Jesus, ML, you are so incredible.”

“You, too.” And he was. His words were as arousing as his touch, scrambling her thoughts.

What could she do? She didn’t think she could give him up.

When he lifted one leg and caressed it lightly from ankle to hip, she stopped thinking. Every place he nipped lightly on her thigh then soothed with kisses felt as if a match had struck her there. When he finished with the first leg, he rolled her toward him again so he could work on the other one. He stroked and licked and tasted until she was a writhing, panting mass.

“You get to have all the fun,” she gasped, needing to torment him the same way.

With the edge of daring being Music Lady gave her, she slid her hand between their bodies and down his stomach to the thickness of his cock. When her fingers closed around him, she heard an answering gasp, the sound sending a bolt of fire rocketing through her. She squeezed gently as his fingers tightened on her nipple again, and he grazed it gently with his teeth.

ML’s hand inched its ways slowly up and down his throbbing length, his cock flexing each time her thumb brushed over the head.

“Jesus, babe,” he murmured against her skin. “When you do that my balls tighten up like a fist. You’ll make me lose control.”

“I like it when you do.” She was growing so much bolder with him each time, both in actions and words, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

“But not too quickly.” His voice trembled with the effort to hold it together.

Reassured, Emma rose gracefully to her knees, and with a movement she was still becoming comfortable with, bent to touch her tongue to the head of his cock. He jerked beneath her and when she took him fully into her mouth, his hands gripped her head, angling it this way and that. A groan rumbled up from his chest, and her lips against him curved in a smile.

Not bad for a novice, Emma
.

An unfamiliar feeling of power surged through her, knowing that she could provide this man with a degree of pleasure close to what he gave her. She managed to find a rhythm, moving her mouth up and down, his cock pulsing in her mouth. Then, without warning, he pulled her head up and urged her onto her side again.

“You just do it to me, ML,” he rasped. “That mouth, God.”

Heat flamed inside her, a surge of pleasure as great as anything he brought her physically.

Just go with the moment, Emma. Worry about the rest later
.

His hand skated over her damp pubic curls to find the slickness of her heat. Her clit, already sensitive, was still swollen and she jumped slightly when he touched it.

“Your body’s still ready for me,” he crooned.

Oh, yes, she was so very wet, more so when his touch slipped along the length of her slit and found her opening.

While he was busy stroking and caressing her, his fingers inside of her, she pushed her hand between them to touch his cock again, rubbing the hard length and insinuating itself between his thighs to cup his balls. Squeezing them. Loving his sounds of pleasure and the tensing of his body.

Growling with need he rolled her to her back, stretched out between her legs, and lapped the wet length of her pussy.

“Ohhhhhh.” Was that her making those erotic noises?

As he moved his mouth and tongue over every exposed area of pink flesh, Emma writhed in pleasure, hitching her hips toward his mouth, her fingers clutching at his hair. He licked and tasted, swallowing her essence as if he could absorb her entirely into his system.

“Oh, oh, oh.”

The little rippling sounds of pleasure seemed to stoke the fire in him hotter and higher. He lapped faster, pulled the nub of her clit into his mouth, and sucked on it deeply. When he eased two fingers inside the wet walls, her pussy clamped down on him like a vise. Each time he touched her it seemed, the need inside her grew.

Suddenly all his finesse disappeared.

“I want inside you. Right now.” His voice was so hoarse with passion she almost didn’t recognize it. He rose to his knees and lifted her legs over his shoulders. Spreading her wide, he positioned himself at her opening and drove into her with one full, hard stroke.

“Marc!” She moaned his name as her body clenched around him, her muscles of her pussy gripping him hard as sensation after sensation rushed through her.

“That sound drives me wild,” he growled, pulling back then plunging into her again.

“More,” she cried, wanting nothing more than this man filling her and driving her to the brink of erotic insanity. “God, Marc. Now, now.”

He slammed into her, harder, faster, pumping, pumping, pumping.

One more thrust and they exploded together, consumed by flames, a cataclysmic eruption that sent her spinning into space. She shook and shuddered, unable to breathe from the sheer force of it.

At last he collapsed against her, bracing himself on his forearms. Beneath him, Emma shivered with the aftershocks that rippled through her, a fine layer of perspiration covering her skin.

Emma had no idea how long they lay there, his arms wrapped around her keeping her tight against his body. She didn’t know whose heart thundered louder, his or hers.

At length he slid from the clasp of her body. Rolling to the side, he tugged her against him, feathering kisses over her face. She could feel her eyes wanting to close. Maybe tonight….

Then she sighed and pushed away.

“I have to go.” He had no idea how much she didn’t want to.

“Why?” He was almost pleading with her. “Why can’t you stay?”

“I-I just can’t.” She wet her lips. “I have to go to work.” She jumped from the bed, grabbed her clothes from the chair, and began to frantically pull them on.

“Please. I want to take you to breakfast. Talk some more.”

Wordlessly she shook her head, stuffing her feet into her shoes and grabbing her purse. As she raced toward the front door, Marc leaped out of bed—naked, as usual—and hurried after her. He caught her as she was unlocking the front door, his hand on her shoulder.

“Please,” he repeated. “Just breakfast, okay? No more questions or anything.”

“I-I can’t, Marc.” If he didn’t let her go now, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to. It got harder and harder to leave each time. Only the fear of unknown repercussions kept her moving.

“You’ll come back to the club again, right?”

She looked at him, seeing the uncertainty on his face. That one thing made her heart turn over and convinced her to keep seeing him. If there were consequences, she’d figure out how to deal with them. She hoped. But right now she had to get away.

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

Then she was out of the house, flying toward her car. When she glanced back, she saw that once again he was standing on his porch. Naked. She hoped his neighbors weren’t up early and peering out their windows.

As she drove away, the inescapable fact smacked her in the face: he was in her blood. In every part of her. The more she saw him, the less likely she could ever let him go.

She prayed he felt the same way. That he meant everything he said.

***

Why is it that everyone wants to have a meal with me?

If it wasn’t so irritating, Emma might have found it funny. Andrew had all but hijacked her for a lunch she didn’t eat. Marc seemed obsessed about taking her to breakfast. Now her parents had insisted she come for dinner.

So here she was, sitting at the familiar breakfast room table, trying to make intelligent conversation with her parents and not succeeding too well. And while the meal was excellent, as usual, the tension in the air stole her appetite.

“You haven’t even called all week,” Angela Blake protested.

“Mom, I’ve just been busy,” Emma told her, gritting her teeth.

Busy trying to straighten out my brain
.

Two intensive nights listening to the high energy music of Lightnin’ and spending demanding hours in bed with Marc had nearly worn her out. So for the last two nights, she’d stayed home trying to separate her feelings from her rational self. A daunting task, no matter how she looked at it. Besides, she needed the sleep. She couldn’t keep dragging herself into work like a limp noodle and catching cat-naps when no one was looking; her saving grace was the fact she had her own office and could close her door. But sooner or later, her boss would catch on and then she’d be toast.