Secrets and Sins: Chayot: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite) (11 page)

Thumbs holding her glistening, swollen folds apart, he licked a slow path up her slit, curled his tongue around the pulsing clit peeking from beneath its fleshy hood. Aslyn screamed and clutched his head.

“Hands down, baby,” he reminded her, planting a kiss to her trembling thigh.

“Chay, please—”

“You want to come?” he asked, his voice harsher than he intended. But lust rode him hard, tearing at his gut like grasping claws. “I can stay here all night and never finish you. So if you want to come down my throat, put. Your hands. Down,” he ground out.

Slowly, she returned them next to her hips.

“I want to touch you,” she whispered, the note of hurt impossible to miss.

Hell no
. If her soft musician hands caressed him now when his flesh throbbed with each breath he inhaled and his insides twisted in need, this would be over before it’d barely begun. And she deserved more than a quick bang on the living room floor of a safe house.

“Baby, if I let you touch me, I will be inside you before you blink. I’m not ready for this to be over so quickly. Yeah, I want to be inside you, but first I want you to shiver around my fingers. Come into my mouth. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” she agreed, a shudder rippling over her body. “Yes.”

“Good girl.” He lowered his head, licked the nub at the top of her sex. “That’s good.”

Then commenced to feast on her.

No inch of her flesh was neglected. Her pink, puffy folds. Her engorged clit. Her spasming core. He thrust two fingers inside her sheath, gritting his teeth at how tight and strong her internal walls gripped him. Milked him. Hissing a sharp breath, he latched onto her clit, sucked.

And she came apart. Her sex clutched at his fingers, the nerve-packed bundle jerking under the lash of his tongue. Her cries fell around him, echoed in the room like the most beautiful, magical aria. She—her body—sang for him.

With suddenly uncoordinated hands, he pulled at the button of his jeans, wrenched down the zipper. His erection ached and pounded in tune with his every heartbeat.
Get inside her. Pound inside her. Fuck her
. The primal part of him had taken over, speaking in short, raw demands. As he shoved the denim down under his ass, air kissed his cock head where pre-cum pearled on the small slit.
Inside
. His internal caveman dialogue continued, and he fisted his dick, squeezing.
Get inside…

“Shit,” he snapped. He dropped his chin and his hand from his cock. “Damn it,” he swore once more, fiercely and hotly. He narrowed his eyes and studied her swollen sex, her full breasts, and finally her passion-glazed stare. “Condom.”

He didn’t have one in his pocket, not counting on having sex with Aslyn tonight or any other night.

“No,” she murmured, reaching for him before lowering her hand back to the floor. “It’s been…a while since I’ve had sex. I’m clean and am on the pill.”

Even as he shook his head he asked, “What’s ‘a while,’ Aslyn?”

Recalling the saran wrap clasp of her sex, he wasn’t surprised. The surge of primitive possessiveness that surged within him, on the other hand, shocked the shit out of him.

Her lashes lowered. “Four years.”

The confession punched him in the gut. Four years? Jesus, she was a gorgeous, sexy-as-hell, vibrant twenty-five-year-old woman. No man had pursued her, perceived her worthy of being wooed and won? What the fuck kind of idiots surrounded her?

Slim hands fluttered and covered her breasts.
Get your head out of your ass
, a voice snarled. She’d obviously interpreted his stunned silence as condemnation.

“Good,” he stated, a wealth of meaning contained in the one word. Good no other man had possessed the balls to approach her and claim her as his own. Good he was the only man she’d allowed to touch her in the last few years. Just…fucking
good
.

But she’d only cemented his determination not to take her without protection. Not because he didn’t want it. Imagining her wet, viselike heat gripping his bare flesh almost stripped him of the scraps of civility he clung to. But she’d already given him so much tonight, that gift he refused to take.

Yes, he religiously used condoms and was regularly tested as part of the physicals he and Rafe demanded of all their employees. He was clean, but the intimacy she offered him—asked of him—he couldn’t steal from her. He’d done too much taking tonight; he drew the line here.

He clasped her wrists and drew her arms down, baring her chest for him once more.

“Be back.”

He bounded to his feet, yanking his jeans up around his hips, though leaving the denim unbuttoned and unzipped. He stalked to his room and sighted the overnight bag on the bed. As a matter of routine, he kept a duffel packed and stored in his SUV, but it’d been some time since he’d looked in the satchel. Praying he’d tossed protection in there, he pawed through the clothes and toiletries. His entreaty swerved on the sacrilegious side, but lust turned a man desperate.

“Thank God,” he muttered, his fingers closing around a small box of condoms. Tearing the box open, he extracted a couple and returned to the living room.

Aslyn hadn’t moved from the position he’d left her. By the time he knelt back between her thighs, he’d ripped the foil square open, shoved his pants down, and sheathed his dick in latex.

His world narrowed to focus solely on her.

The desire and traces of apprehension in her gray eyes. Her teeth sinking into her full bottom lip. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts with their hard, brown tips. The flushed, wet, plump folds of her sex. The tiny entrance to the heart of her.

Need—greedy, ravenous need—seized him. He cupped the back of her thighs, held her legs up and wide. Open. Arrowing his cock toward that small portal, he nudged it, pushed.

And entered heaven.

The head of his dick sank inside her, and he groaned. And stared. The large knob penetrated and separated her folds, stretching her flesh to accommodate and accept him. He paused, flicked a glance up. Aslyn’s lashes had lowered, her lips parted and soft pants escaped. Not spying any sign of discomfort or pain on her lovely features, he surged forward, thrusting deeper.

Liquid heat. Slick. Tight. So damn tight. Only half of his wide stalk had disappeared inside her. Sweat trickled down his chest, his muscles strung so tight he teetered dangerously close to snapping in half. Jaw clenched, he glanced up again. This time distress twisted her face, flattening her mouth, tautening the skin over her cheekbones.

“Aslyn.” He smoothed his palms up her thighs, torso, and cupped her breasts. He whisked his thumbs back and forth over the beaded peaks. And swore when her core clamped down on him. “You like that, baby?” He repeated the caress and her breath
swooshed
from between her lips. “Yeah, you do.” He chuckled and rolled her nipples between his fingers, tugging as he thrust against her. “Baby, you suck me in. Every time I do this”—he pinched the hard tips—“you pull me deeper inside. Come on. Take more of me. Take more.”

She arched, pushing her breasts into his hands. “Please, Chay.”

Her hips undulated, wild and uninhibited. Grabbing them, he lifted her and plunged, sheathing his entire length inside her. Her thin wail resonated in the room, her fingers scrabbling at the floor. He paused. Waves and waves of pleasure rolled over him, threatening to sweep him under. He fought the siren-like call of orgasm. Bullied it back.

Not yet. Her first.

Falling over her, he slammed his palms on either side of her head. He captured her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue deep, consuming her. Worshiping her.

“Now,” he rasped against her lips. “Touch me, Aslyn. Hold me.” The last telltale plea escaped him before he could halt it. Still, with his face buried in the crook between her shoulder and neck, he repeated the supplication against her damp skin. “Hold me.”

Without hesitation, her arms encircled his neck, her legs clasped his waist. He groaned, withdrew from her grasping heat and plunged back inside. Her core spasmed and rippled around his flesh as if seemingly intent on drawing his soul out through his dick.

The tenuous link on his control shattered. He fucked her as if possessed. Hard. Wild. Raw. Their special, intimate symphony filled his ears. The slap of flesh against flesh. The wet suction of her flesh releasing and accepting his cock. The whimpers, moans, and cries of pleasure.

Reaching down between their writhing bodies, he stroked his thumb over her clit. Once. Twice. Another firm stroke, and she splintered with a sharp scream. Her lithe body stiffened beneath him, her sex milking him, demanding he follow her into rapture.

And he did. He swan dived after her, emptying everything he was into the void.

Into oblivion.

Into her.

Chapter Seventeen

Aslyn emerged from the bathroom, wincing slightly as she flicked the light switch. The click resounded in the room like a mini bomb. Okay, maybe not that loud, but damn.

She flicked a glance toward the still figure on the bed. At some point they’d moved to her bedroom, where he’d obliterated every preconceived notion about a man’s sexual longevity. Under her breath, she cursed and welcomed the heat that flooded between her thighs. Three times they’d had sex, counting the first on the living room floor.
Oh boy, did it count
. Three times she’d come like a screaming banshee and still her body craved more of the earth-shattering pleasure he wielded. Good Lord, his hands, tongue, and cock.

The sexual holy trinity.

Water
. She yanked her hungry gaze from his strong, beautiful arms and back. Thirst had driven her from the bed after answering nature’s call. Water, not the miles and miles of golden skin bared by the sheet gathered around his slim, freaking
magical
hips. After rummaging through shopping bags and drawing on a shirt and panties, she ordered her feet to cross the bedroom floor. Twinges of unused muscles protested with each step.
Ungrateful
. After the way they’d been worked over by Chay’s sensual brand of torture, her muscles were just ungrateful to complain.

Slipping out of the bedroom, she headed down the shadowed hall toward the kitchen. Her steps stuttered and halted in front of the wide entrance to the living room. She studied the couch, the coffee table sitting at an angle, the spot on the floor in front of the couch. The spot where she’d offered herself up to Chay, and he’d given her pleasure that surpassed her wildest—and kinkiest—dreams. A shiver worked its way up her spine. Something had occurred on that floor. Besides sex hot enough to melt the polar ice caps. Something beyond the physical.

Unsatisfactory sexual experiences hadn’t been the only reason why she’d avoided intimacy with other men. In a world where desire and sex were commodities to be used, bartered, and abused, she’d been leery.

She owned a mirror—Angelina Jolie didn’t stare back at her. With red curls that required a stockpile of hair products to tame, a body that put the “ruben” in Rubenesque, and a mouth that spewed thoughts like projectile vomit from
The Exorcist
, she didn’t top the Sexiest Women Alive list. Her fame and wealth presented more of a lure than her admittedly dusty feminine wiles. She hadn’t trusted men or their blatant flattery. Saw right through it. And the shitfest with Lorenzo had only cemented her beliefs.

Last night Chay had obliterated those convictions to hell and back.

She hadn’t come to him the successful, celebrity concert pianist. The woman he knew was a PTSD hermit hiding from her emotional wounds, unable to touch a piano or create the music she’d forged a career on. And yet he’d wanted her.
Her
—Aslyn Jericho, the woman, not the celebrated musician. While he’d confessed to being a fan and enjoying her music, it hadn’t been her CD he’d taken so thoroughly the night before. It hadn’t been her music he’d called gorgeous.

No, more important than orgasms, he’d taught her she could trust—her vulnerability, her body, her pleasure. And maybe, just maybe, in return he’d learned to trust her a little as well. At least enough to ask her to hold him as he shook in her arms.

Sighing, she stepped forward, but then stopped again. Her gaze settled on the baby grand piano occupying a corner of the spacious room. So regal. So beautiful.

So scary.

As if towed by an imaginary lure, she crossed the floor toward the instrument. The hated mixture of fear, hope, and despair swirled inside her chest. Fear because once she sat down, she might freeze up, the music playing hide-and-seek. Hope because maybe this time,
this time
, the block would lift, and she would reclaim her passion, her life. Despair because another disappointment, another empty void or bout of panic might be the one to permanently crush her spirit.

And still she rolled the bench out and sat.

Sweat prickled her palms and underarms. Her heart pounded against her sternum in a wild beat. She scrubbed her hands over her thighs then carefully raised the fallboard, revealing the keyboard beneath. Air heaving in and out of her lungs, she lifted her trembling hands over the keys. Tingles raced up and down her fingers, over her palms, and yet, she couldn’t bring her hands down. Couldn’t place them on the keys. Couldn’t touch them.

Grief poured through her. She squeezed her eyes closed, a sob escaping her lips. Images of her playing in the house she’d grown up, in her Los Angeles home, and on stage flashed across the back of her eyelids. Then the succession of memories ceased, replaced by one. Her splayed on a piano. Chay between her legs, his mouth on her, introducing her to pleasure she’d never experienced. Pleasure she would forever associate with her piano.

Remnants of that passion infiltrated on grief’s territory. The remembered ecstasy quivered at the base of her spine, tiptoed over her skin, and traveled to all points north and south. Underneath lurked the nebulous taste of freedom. Of soaring.

But on the coattails of the passion nipped the never-far-away fear. Her hands shook harder…

Strong, muscled arms enclosed her, and a hard chest pressed to her back, forming an impregnable shield around her. Chay’s unique scent embraced her, covered her.

“Play,” he murmured in her ear, his lips brushing against her lobe. “I’ll keep you safe. No demons, remember? Nothing can get to you as long as I’m here, surrounding you. Protecting you. Play, Aslyn.”

His vow echoed in her spirit, intensifying and gathering strength and power with each reverberation.
Faith
. She had to drag on her big girl panties, tie up her Nikes, and take that leap of faith. She had to trust Chay would keep his word and not leave her. Trust that this time would be different. Trust in the music that had been her savior, best friend, and comforter for more than half her life.

She lowered her fingers and inhaled a sharp, almost painful breath at the first contact of keys against her skin in six months. Oh God. She was touching them.
She was touching them
. Joy swelled from her soul, exploding like a geyser. Tentatively, she eased the pads of her fingers up and down the keys, familiarizing herself with them as if greeting old friends.

Then she played.

Tentatively at first. Then faster. With more confidence until the music filled the room to capacity. It seemed to replace the air, the walls, the windows, until she and Chay were no longer bordered by glass and plaster but pure, magical music.

She played.

And Chay never left.

…

Los.
Punch
. Angeles.
Punch
.

She was returning.
Kick
. To Los.
Squat. Kick
. Angeles.

Sweat poured down Chay’s face and bare chest, dampened his thighs. Fatigue tried to creep into his muscles, but he shoved it to the rear of his head. Instead he focused on another Kung Fu form, following the pattern of stances.
Advance. Retreat. Kick. Side-step. Punch. Rise. Sink. Punch.

Over and over, form after form, he emptied his mind into the physical exercise, savoring the exertion, strain, and peace. For a while, he submerged himself, but when he completed the last stance, his turbulent thoughts waited for him like carrion birds circling a carcass.

Aslyn had stopped playing just a little while ago after hours and hours at the piano. Soft classical compositions. Dramatic pieces with crashing crescendos. Even playful nursery rhyme ditties. Once she’d started, she hadn’t stopped. As if trying to make up for lost time.

Already he missed it. The silence seemed too thunderous, too deep. It reached into the third bedroom he’d commandeered for a short-term workout room. If the quiet reverberated this loud now, how profound and deafening would it be in weeks? Months?

And the quiet was inevitable. Because she was returning to Los Angeles. An important stage of her healing had begun. In her own words, when she was able to play again, to create music again, she would know Lakes hadn’t won. She could return home not just a survivor but a victor. He’d acknowledged this day would arrive; someone as strong, as stubborn, and full of fire as she wouldn’t remain down for long. But knowing it and having to face it… Especially after he’d been inside her body, experienced the embrace of her arms and sex?

Shit
. He snatched up a bottle of water and a towel. Not that sex had changed anything. Yes, he’d failed spectacularly in keeping his hands off of her. Like going-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory fail. But in the end, once they identified the stalker, she was leaving. And he wouldn’t stop her. She needed—deserved—a man who could stand beside her in the spotlight unafraid of the exposure, who didn’t have blood on his hands. A man who wasn’t terrified she would one day look at him as damaged goods. That man wasn’t him.

As much as he hated it.

His cell rang, interrupting his mental ass-kicking. He strode to the bedside dresser he’d shoved against the far wall and tapped the phone’s screen, not bothering to glance down at the caller ID. The ringtone—“Hungry” by Dave Navarro, courtesy of Aslyn—informed him of the caller’s identity.

“What’s up, Rafe?” he greeted.

“Hey,” Rafe said. “How’s it going over there?”

Peachy. Just peachy
. “Fine. Thanks for arranging delivery of the piano. I appreciate that.”

Chay couldn’t see his best friend through the cell, but he could easily imagine the dismissive shrug. Heard it in his voice. “No problem.” Clicks like fingers tapping a computer keyboard resonated through the line. “I have some information for you.”

“Great. What’d you find out?”

“Like I told you yesterday, we tracked the burner to the manufacturer and the store in Jamaica Plain where the phone was delivered,” he began, voice adopting the firm, no-nonsense tone Chay referred to as the “badass techie.” “I went over there this morning. It’s one of those gas station convenience stores, and unfortunately, their cameras record over the previous day’s film every night. No footage.”

“Damn.” Frustration roared through him. That’d been their only lead. “Okay. Dead end. Can you do me a favor?”

“Name it,” Rafe said.

“Can you call Leah and ask her if she can pull on her police contacts and see if they found any fingerprints on the photos or envelope? I know it might be too soon, but…damn. I hate sitting on my hands, waiting.” Leah, Gabe’s fiancée and a former police officer, worked for their firm as an investigator, and her old connections still came in handy.

“I’ll call her,” Rafe promised.

“And could you review the video from the security cameras around her house? Maybe the stalker came sneaking around, and we possibly caught him on tape.”

“Consider it done. At the risk of you telling me to mind my own damn business…” Rafe paused. “This thing with Aslyn…”

“There isn’t a thing,” Chay stated flatly.

“Why not?” Rafe shot back.

Chay pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rafe.”

“If you try and tell me she’s just a random client, I’m going to call bullshit then pound it out of you.”

Chay snorted. “You can try.”

“Listen, man.” Rafe sighed. “I saw how crazy thinking she was hurt drove you. And I also noticed how she looks at you. How she held onto you in the police station. There’s something there between you two. Why won’t you explore it? See if maybe something’s…there?”

Chay turned, planted his palm on the wall. Head low, he opened his mouth to reply—to tell Rafe to mind his own damn business—but the words didn’t materialize. Nothing emerged but, “I can’t.”

Rafe sighed. “I love you, Chay. I do. But at some point you’re going to have to decide if you’re going to live. Finally live free of all the shit. Or if you’re going to continue to entomb yourself in the grave with Richard.”

He remained leaning against the wall long after Rafe hung up.
Entombed
. Yeah, that pretty much described his existence. Though in the last week, the crypt door had cracked open just a bit, allowing a shaft of sunshine into the shadowed depths. And here he stood, prepared to slam the door shut again.

“Hey. You okay?”

He lifted his head. Aslyn peered up at him, concern darkening her eyes. She smoothed a palm down his back, not seeming to mind the sweat drenching his skin.

“Yeah,” he said, straightening and dislodging her hand. Her touch invited his common sense to wave bye-bye and his dick to reign supreme. “Yeah,” he repeated. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay,” she murmured, shifting back and granting him room to pass by her.

He felt her eyes on his neck and shoulders. Goose bumps prickled the area, and he fought the urge to wheel around and pin her to the wall. He entered the bathroom and closed the door, shutting her and temptation out. Blowing out a breath, he twisted the knobs and stripped out of his shorts, dropping the soggy nylon to the floor. Moments later he stood under the showerhead, water pouring down over him, washing away the grime and perspiration of the past hour. He swiped his hands over his hair, shoving the drenched strands out of his face.

The shower door slid back, and Aslyn stepped in.

He froze. And stared.

Son of. A. Bitch
.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think as the heavy, pulsing spray transformed her red and gold curls to a dark auburn. Droplets clung to her long lashes, rolled down her cheeks, shoulders, breasts, and beaded nipples. Beautiful. Jesus Christ, she was so…beautiful.

She slid her palms up his chest, stroked them over his shoulders and down his arms. Her fingers entwined with his, rubbing back and forth, caressing the tender skin between, before retracing her sensual path. Head tilted, she lowered to her knees, never releasing him from her visual connection. She gripped his erection, fisting the base of it. Squeezing. Arrowing the heavy stalk to her lovely, full lips. The air stuttered, then caught in his lungs.

Her breath fluttered over the flared head, and he gritted his teeth. Then her lips parted, and he was engulfed in her hot, wet heat.