TRAGIC: Rook and Ronin, #1 (17 page)

"Mmmmhmmmm," is all I can manage, because a chill rockets down my spine and my head involuntarily tips back and gives him permission to suck on my neck.

Holy shit
.

He pulls back for a moment, just long enough to say, "Touch me, Rook," and then his mouth is back on my neck. He takes my left hand, which has a firm grasp on one of his belt loops, a safe move if ever there was one, and flattens my palm against his waist. I move the other hand in a feeble attempt to be an active participant instead of a dead fish who only reacts.

"More of that and we can put this scene to rest."

I take a deep breath and slip my hand under his t-shirt and then we both let a little gasp together as the chills travel up his body now. Antoine is talking in French again and Ronin leans down and takes my mouth.

It's a soft kiss at first, but as soon as I open up for his tongue his hands go behind my neck and it turns into something way beyond soft. He crushes my mouth with his, drawing in a breath that says he's absolutely turned on. This excites me and I kiss him back with just as much force, our tongues probing and twisting, our breath coming in gasps and long draws, like there is not enough air in the world to fuel this kiss. His hands are all over my body now, one still grasping the back of my neck to keep me close to him, the other, the one not on the side where Antoine is clicking away at the camera, slips under my skirt and travels up my thigh.

I moan and then catch Elise moving in out of the corner of my eye and Ronin withdraws his secret hand, bringing it out in full view once again.

"Take my shirt off." It's not a sweet request, it's a command. For like a fraction of a millisecond I wonder if he's allowed to command me, but I slap that cautious Rook away and do what I'm told.

"Slow?" I ask him.

"As long as you drag your fingers up my body as you do it, slow is just fine with me."

Oh fuck!

I take the thin fabric between my fingertips and slide my palms against his body as I lift and then roll it up, inch by inch. I'm driving him crazy, I can tell, mostly because he's practically biting my ear and whispering, "You're driving me fucking crazy, Gidget." I only make it up to his chest before he releases his hold on my neck and whips the shirt over his head in one sweeping motion, then bunches it up in front of him and throws it over at Elise who is still standing guard off to the side where the offending hand was wandering a few minutes ago.

Antoine barks in French again and then Ronin pulls back and leads me over to the blanket.

"Lie down," he says in that throaty command he gave earlier.

I'll debate whether or not I should be putting up with that later, but right now, I'm all in. I kneel down, smooth my dress out a little and then lie back on the cool cotton blanket. My skin is so hot and feverish from the kisses and touching that the blanket soothes me. Everything around me smells like cherry blossoms, and when I turn my head I realize that they are all over the blanket now because Elise swoops in to adjust my hair and place the flowers in strategic locations. Ronin is messing with the food and pouring the wine into glasses.

And before I know what's happening he's lying down next to me, leaning down and pressing himself over my stomach. I sigh at the dress, because it's the only thing separating my bare skin from his. "Just a few shots like this, Rook, then we'll sit up and have some fun." He's got a devilish grin as the words come out.

"Finally," I say with mock exasperation. "I'm starting to get bored."

He growls down at me and then goes back to kissing my neck so he can whisper in my ear, "I'd have you naked by now if Elise wasn't here."

"Ohhh, you're being bad," I whisper back, being equally discreet. "I bet she grounds you if I tell her what you just said."

We stare at each other for a few seconds, his eyes searching me for a moment. "Date me, Rook."

"What?"

"Let me take you out."

I look over at Elise who is distracted by an assistant who has joined us. "Are we allowed?"

"Pffft." He rolls off me and sits up, then pulls me up and sets me on his lap. I'm breathless with the quick change of position and almost gasp when he leans in to whisper in my ear again. "Pay close attention, Gidget." And then Antoine is giving orders and Ronin is fixing my dress so that it flares out around his legs.

It occurs to me then… I have no fucking underwear on.

And the reason it occurs to me is because his excitement is right underneath my completely bare girly parts.

Antoine is on Ronin's left, so Ronin's left hand begins to caress my foot with small circles, a touch so light it actually makes squirm because my feet are totally ticklish. He takes the hint and slowly sweeps up my calf, which is just about the most sensual feeling I've ever experienced. I moan out a little and his bruising kisses are back, crushing against my mouth.

Just as Antoine takes his attention to our lips Ronin's right hand also begins at my foot, swirling his fingertips around the soft pad of my arch. I laugh into his mouth and he pulls me close, my hair hiding our faces for a moment, and says, "Shhhh, now. Be good, Gidge." And then his right hand sweeps up my leg and under my dress, caressing the same small circles along my inner thigh.

"Oh, shit," I whimper as I bury myself in his neck. Just a few more inches and I'm going to come undone. My neck tilts back as the sensations all crash together and he takes his kisses to my plunging neckline, his left hand, the one still out in the open slips up to my breast just as the hidden hand drops down a little farther, just a flutter of a touch against my crease.

He reaches over, not with the hidden hand, and picks up a glass of wine and hands it to me.

My fingertips barely understand what to do with the glass because the only thing on my mind is where his other hand is. We each take a sip and then he bites into a cherry, taking half of it in his mouth, and spits out the pit.

Antoine barks something harsh in French and Ronin laughs. "It's a fucking pit, Antoine, it's not
litter
." He rolls his eyes at me. "Sit still now, Rook, and keep your mouth closed for a moment."

My mind is still on his fingers as they caress my inner thigh, but I do my best not to squirm.

He brings the cherry to my lips and I keep my mouth closed. This makes him smile and then he traces my lips, dripping juice as he paints them. I'm just about to let my tongue dart out and get the juice when Ronin's mouth reaches up and licks it off, stopping to suck on my bottom lip, and then gives it a little nibble that makes me cry out.

He bites into another cherry and again, to Antoine's disgust, woofs out the pit into the grass. Spitting is a skill only boys really acquire. They are so good at it. It might gross out Antoine, but not me. I think just about everything Ronin is doing with his mouth is astonishing right now. The secret hand under my dress appears again. He lifts my left hand and paints each fingertip pad with cherry juice, then sucks it off, nibbling them one by one, just like he did my lips.

I just stare at him and his eyes never leave mine. "What?" he finally asks.

"You—" I say.

He raises his eyebrows.

"—are bad."

He laughs. "If you were naked right now I'd drip this juice all down your belly and let my tongue—"

"OK, that's enough," Antoine says. "Excellent job, Rook."

Fucking Antoine.

I bite my lip as Ronin licks my fingertips one more time and then grins up at me like an idiot. "Want to come over and watch a movie, Gidget?"

I nod enthusiastically as Elise helps me up, and then Ronin bounces to his feet and puts his arm around me protectively. "You fell asleep pretty quick last time, are you sure you're up for a movie?"

I'm not sure if a movie is the code word for sex or not right now, but either way, I'm definitely up for it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight - RONIN

"Hold on, stud!" Elise calls out before I can swoop Rook back inside and up to my apartment.

"Go change and I'll meet you outside the dressing room, OK?"

Rook nods and walks off and I watch her until the glass doors close behind her and she turns the corner. I turn back to my meddling sister who is already shaking her head at me. "What? That was some shoot, eh? Don't you think? She's perfect. I can't wait till tomorrow." I laugh a little because while I really am excited for tomorrow, I know mentioning it like this is pissing Elise off.

Bad
.

"You are not dating that girl, Ronin. I mean it. She belongs to the studio for now—when this contract is up, you two can talk about having babies and all that shit. But for now, you stay out of her pants, do you hear me?"

"I'm offended, Elise. Really. I'm a professional."

She eyes me cautiously for several long seconds. "If you do, I'll know. And I will be pissed, do you understand?"

"It's a movie, Elise. I'm gonna feed her some more fruit and get her a little drunk, what could possibly go wrong?"

"I'm not kidding. I saw your little stealth hand move, by the way. Next time I'll pull the plug, but Antoine is exhausted tonight so I ignored it." She stops to glare at me. "I won't ignore it again. And she's not even legal, Ronin. You will
not
get her drunk."

"Would you relax, Ellie! It was a joke, since when do I get minors drunk? Fuck, I don't know why you're going all batshit about this. I'm gonna take care of her just like I take care of all the rest, except I'm gonna enjoy our photoshoots just a little bit more than usual." I grin, thinking that remark is fantastically fun in my mind, but Elise is not amused.

"That's what I'm concerned with, Ronin. We don't need another Mardee on our hands."

Oh… buuuuuurn
. What a bitch. "You know what? Fuck you, Elise. I was nineteen fucking years old when she came through here. I had no idea what she was doing."

"And that's my point, dumbass. This girl is nineteen too, she's had some kind of very recent upheaval in her life, and you're fucking with her head right now. Stay out of her pants, do you understand? Or I will pull you from this project so fast your dick will spin."

"Whatever." I wave her off and go back inside. I am not responsible for Mardee, that's one thing I've come to terms with since all that shit went down. I could no more have stopped her than anyone else. And Elise insinuating that I dropped the ball when she was modeling for us just pisses me off.

Rook is already dressed when I get back inside. She's waiting by the door, biting her lip.

"What?" I ask, a little impatiently as I direct her up the stairs.

"What was that about?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"I put the dress back in the bag and hung it up on the rack."

I shake Elise's words off and take my attention back to Gidget as we round the corner and head to my apartment door. "Perfect, I'll take care of it in the morning. Are you still up for a movie?"

She nods. "Yeah, sure."

Rook is not Mardee, in fact, Rook is the anti-Mardee. There is not one thing I can think of that might link the two. They don't look alike, they certainly don't act alike, and I never thought of Mardee as anything more than a fun interlude between girlfriends.

And she thought the same of me. We were mutually apathetic towards each other.

"But Elise didn't look too happy."

I push Rook inside the apartment and close the door, then take her face in my hands. "Who cares?" I kiss her again but she's not as interested as she was down on the terrace. "She's just overprotective, that's all. She worries about the girls, especially the ones I date." I stop here to make a point. "But I'd just like you to know, I don't bring them home, Rook. Ever."

She shoots me an incredulous look.

"I swear, I'm not saying I'm celibate or anything, but I don't bring them here to this apartment."

"So where do you take them?"

"It's a four-story building and we're the only people who live here. There are lots of places downstairs."

"Oh," is all she says to that and I take a deep breath, feeling stupid for admitting that I fuck girls in random rooms in our building.

"You have to be hungry, are you?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

She pushes me away from her, then ducks under my arm, walks into the living room and takes a seat on the couch. "I am. What do you have?"

Yeah, that moment during the photoshoot is pretty much gone. I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. "Fruit," I call. "Apples, Cuties, grapes, and pomegranate seeds."

"That's quite a selection," she says from behind me.

I spin around, surprised. "I love fruit. I blame it on Antoine. He gets fruit baskets delivered every week. I'm not even sure where they come from, like maybe he's got a subscription to one of those Fruit of the Week Clubs or something? I'm not sure. But for the last dozen years or so I've been eating fresh fruit out of a basket that sits on Antoine's desk in his office."

She's smiling again and my heart lifts. Maybe I didn't fuck it up?